Code Evangelion
by tehprognoob
Summary: Year 2010: a mere decade after Second Impact, the Holy Britannian Empire has moved out to conquer Japan.  Year 2015: A new threat to all humanity arrives. Humanity drops their animosity against each other to fight the mysterious "Angels," or so it seems.
1. Shinji Ikari

**_Code Evangelion_**

_Imperial Calendar, year 2010; a mere decade after Second Impact, the Holy Britannian Empire had risen out of its ashes and had once again embarked upon its mission of Pax Britannia. Its first victim was the tiny island nation of Japan, devastated by the Impact but climbing furiously in power through its vast sakuradite trade. It, however, was no match for the titanic Empire. The Japanese military was devastated by the introduction of the first Humanoid Autonomous Armored Knight, the Knightmare frame. Light, fast and deadly, the Knightmare frames devastated the Japanese line of defense for the mainland, and Japan fell to its knees. Prime Minister Kururugi committed suicide and the once-proud nation became known simply as "Area 11."_

**Stage I: Shinji Ikari**

Shinjuku Ghetto

The dark-haired boy stooped into the dirty tent.

"Aunty, here," he said softly.

"Thank you, Shinji," the tired old woman answered. She received the bowl of food and sat down tiredly.

"Aunty, are you feeling okay?" the boy asked. The woman chuckled.

"Shinji…you really are nothing like your father; you're such a considerate boy…"

She sighed.

"If only I was born a Britannian," the boy sighed. "Things would be so much-"

"NO!" his aunt snapped. "NEVER be ashamed to be Japanese! We of Japan are _much_ better than the damned Brits! They invaded our nation, took away our freedom, but we still live, and so our _pride_ lives on with us!"

"Sorry, Aunty…"

The woman sighed again.

"You're right; you're always so sensible and grown-up. True; it would be easier on your uncle and me if we were Britannians, but from a Japanese womb you were born, and to a Japanese grave you shall go."

Shinji sat down and bowed his head.

XXXXXXXXXX

"THAT JERK HUNG UP ON ME!" the redheaded girl squealed. "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji stared forlornly at the gleaming Ashford Academy.

"Stop dreaming, Ikari," he told himself. "You're an _Eleven_, for God's sake!"

"And WHAT is wrong with that?" a sharp female voice demanded.

Shinji snapped up. A short-haired Britannian student stood angrily before him. Ever the attentive worker, Shinji slipped into autopilot.

"Oh! Good afternoon, miss. What would like? We have a wide selection of-"

"I'd _like_ for you to have some _pride_ in your race!" she snapped. "There's nothing wrong with being Japanese!"

Before he could offer an apology, she had marched off.

_'Good God…her uniform is the Ashford standard, so…'_

He broke out in a cold sweat.

_'Shit…I think I just insulted a daughter of some aristocrat…but why would the daughter of a Britannian noble …'_

"Um…Mr. Ice cream man?" a timid, soft voice asked. It was another Ashford girl, this time with long, brown tresses, sitting in a wheelchair.

"Uh, yes, miss?" he stammered. This one was gentle-looking and somewhat nervous, but still…losing another customer is bad.

The girl coughed embarrassedly.

"Could you push me back to school, please? I came out and got lost…"

_'What?'_

She tilted her face. The large eyes were shut. She was blind. Startled, Shinji moved quickly out from behind his cart.

"Mr. Ice cream man, wait," the girl said. "Can you just tell me your name?"

"It's not important, miss," he said.

"I think that it is. Tell me, please. I'd like to know; I'm sure we could be friends."

"It's Shinji, miss. Shinji Ikari."

"Well, I'm Nunnally. Nunnally Lamprouge; nice to meet you, Shinji."

XXXXXXXXXX

"I, Lelouch Li Britannia, order you, all of you, _die_!"

The soldier jerked back and began to shake and laugh as the boy's left eye began to glow a sinister violet.

"Happily, your highness!" he cried. He and his men pulled their pistols and held them to their jaws.

"Fire!"

XXXXXXXXXX

"Tell me, why do you have to sell ice cream instead of going to school?" Nunnally asked gently.

Shinji smiled wearily as he pushed Nunnally down the bustling street.

"I'm an Eleven, Miss Lamprouge; my family lives in the Shinjuku Ghetto. If I don't work, then we'll starve."

Nunnally looked startled.

"But doesn't the government help at all?" she asked worriedly. "Doesn't father…"

Shinji actually laughed aloud.

"Help Elevens? Britannians, maybe, but not Elevens…"

Nunnally was quiet for a while. Shinji turned a corner, and they came onto the grand boulevard that led to Ashford Academy.

"Shinji, where do you live?" she asked.

"Shinjuku Ghetto; I told you, right?"

"No, I mean, where? What's your address? I'd like to talk to you some more."

Shinji laughed again, and Nunnally looked puzzled.

"What's so funny?"

"You asked for my address?"

"Yes, I did."

The wheelchair slid silently along the boulevard.

"My address…? I live in an oil-paper tent on top of a pile of rubble. It's a nice place; you should visit."

XXXXXXXXXX

The Sutherland was harder to handle than the Ashford Academy's Ganymede. Lelouch gritted his teeth as the machine slid behind a shattered building. His cell phone beeped.

"Uh, Lulu? What in the world have you been doing? Where are you now? If you keep cutting class, you'll get left back," a girl's voice drifted over the line.

"Are you near a TV?" Lelouch asked.

"A TV?" she asked, confused.

"Sorry, but this is important," Lelouch apologized.

The girl over the line snorted, and Lelouch listened to her talking to her friends as she changed the channel to the News.

"Is there anything about Shinjuku?" Lelouch demanded.

"Um…traffic restrictions-"

"Why is it restricted?" he demanded as Britannian tanks rolled by noisily. If he stayed, then he'll almost certainly get caught, inside a Sutherland Knightmare frame belonging to a knight of the Purist Faction.

"I don't know; they're not saying," the girl said uncertainly. "Oh, you're gambling again, aren't you? I've warned you before more than enough about how dangerous it is!"

Lelouch smiled as he spotted a broken chess set on the ground. The King lay in the center of the board, the other pieces scattered about him, all alone, like he was right now, a commander without his troops.

Lelouch liked that.

"Yep, you got me," he said. "And by the way, tell my little sister that I'm going to be home late tonight, would you? Thanks; bye."

He hung up.

_'They need to keep a lid on this information, so it'll be hard to call for reinforcements like this; they'll have to make do with the pieces on the board,'_ he thought to himself. _'I'm hemmed in here; it'll be hard to break through by myself.'_

The Sutherland's hatch hissed open, extending the pilot seat. Lelouch stood up and stared as a Britannian assault VTOL burst into flames, struck by a Slash Harken.

_'I want payback for having been dragged into your fight.'_

XXXXXXXXXX

Area 18

A bright red Knightmare raced over the desert of Area 18, ignoring the fire pouring out of the gigantic Knightmare frames lined up ahead.

"Lady Langley, try to stay in formation," a voice admonished over the comm.

Girlish laughter drifted over the line.

"Your highness, you said I could have free rein, right? Anyway, what could any of these crusty, overweight shells do to me, the Knight of Two?"

A cannon shell exploded at the knightmare's feet, doing no damage to the machine, which had already soared far ahead. It dug its feet in and fired a Harken that slammed through the armor of the heavy knightmare, twisting the red frame around like a slingshot. Landing on top of the lumbering Bamides frame, the Knight of Two, Asuka Langley, slammed her lance right into the control room. She casually pulled it out and fit a bazooka into the hole. Three blasts emanated from the weapon, and the custom Gloucester slipped off of the dying Bamides, nonchalantly driving away on its landspinners as the lifeless machine exploded, showering sparks and debris over the impassive desert.

"And again, you charge in like a mindlessly mad barbarian." The voice admonished. "Well, that about does it for Area 18. I believe that Area 11 is up next."

Asuka tied back her long hair and leaned back in her seat.

"Of course, Princess Cornelia; it'll be the same treatment for the Elevens, right?"

XXXXXXXXXX

"Aunty…"

The old woman coughed weakly.

"I was lucky, unlike the others…" she mumbled. "Your uncle is still out working. He should be alright."

She burst into tears.

"Britannians!" she screamed. "It's always Britannians!"

She rocked with dry heaves as Shinji held her, silent tears rolling down his cheek.

_'But not all Britannians are like that…'_

Nunnally, the girl he'd met outside Ashford Academy. She'd offered to let him in, hadn't she?

No; that was impossible; no Britannian parent would ever allow it, no matter how sweet their daughter is.

"C'mon; I'm sure the Black Knights or something can help us."

He helped his aunt up. The Black Knights were a new resistance that had sprung up in the wake of the most recent Shinjuku massacre. This one, however, was a great deal more successful, particularly that man, Zero.

Whoever this character is, he obviously gave a damn about the Japanese. His people should be able to help them.

XXXXXXXXXX

"It isn't every day that I go to a meeting with Numbers," Charles zi Britannia, 98th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire, boomed. "Lorenz, your organization has caught my eye."

"Yes, Majesty; however, it is Ikari who manages the mundane, day-to-day affairs."

Light lit up on the seat of a dark, heavy-set Japanese man wearing amber glasses.

The Emperor laughed.

"An Eleven, are you? From what Schnizel's reports I deem interesting enough to read, you Elevens have given my people the worst resistance. One of you…that Zero character, even killed Clovis…not much of a loss, to be sure, but annoying nonetheless."

"Of course, Sire." The man said evenly, resting his face on his white-gloved hands.

The Emperor sipped a drink, enjoying himself.

"I find that your…projects suit my purpose. Therefore, I have decided that Britannia shall back Nerv's ventures. Turn in your requests for funding to my personal aides later."

He paused for a second.

"And you said that the most likely candidate for the pilot of…Evangelion Unit 02 would be Asuka Langley. She also happens to be the Knight of Two."

"She has been prepared, subtly, since a young age. The Evangelion has also been made to be similar to a Knightmare. Her combat training under your service will be training enough. The rest is simple enough for a lady of her intellect."

"Then move Unit 02 to Pendragon."

"Understood; however…"

"I am aware that Area 11 is the chosen battlefield against these Angels. However, I'd like to observe the Eva for myself. I believe that enough have been said; you are dismissed."

Charles's seat went dark.

In the darkness of the room, only Gendo Ikari and Keel Lorenz were visible.

"Ikari…this is a gamble-"

"That is absolutely necessary; the Empire's support gains us all that we need. Money is irrelevant to the Committee, but influence is crucial."

"Then…we shall take your gamble."

Keel's light went out. Gendo smiled ever so slightly under his gloved hands.

"Of course…"

He pressed a button.

"Captain Katsuragi"

"Sir"

"Go."

**End Stage I**


	2. Angel Attack

Code Evangelion

**Stage II: Angel Attack**

Zero

The man who will destroy the world, and become its master

Lelouch could only laugh as he stood with his Black Knights, addressing the world.

'_That's right…a knight for justice.'_

That's what he would be, until he no longer needed to be.

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji stared at the tall woman that towered over him. The car that she drove was…unusual for an Eleven.

"My…father…?"

"That's right; I'm Misato, by the way. Misato Katsuragi."

He looked uncertainly at her.

"But…an Eleven running an organization for the Empire is just…ridiculous!"

Misato's jaw clenched.

"Have some pride…" she grumbled.

"Sorry…"

Misato scratched her head.

"We're not exactly under the Emperor, but he supports us. At any rate, you'll go to school, your family will be well-set up and you will live quite comfortably."

'_Aunty…'_

"I…"

He clenched his fist tight.

"I'll go…"

She smiled.

"Good."

She opened the door to her car.

"I imagine you won't have many things to take."

XXXXXXXXXX

Kallen's Glasgow crashed through the gate of the drug house, scattering the various dealers and workers.

"Knightmares are really amazing. Each one is an army unto itself!"

She crashed through the stack of crates and sprayed the insides of the warehouse. The door of the inner warehouse crumpled like tin foil when the Glasgow ripped through the metal.

"What the-"

The inside was completely dark.

Kallen gasped in horror when the Glasgow's night vision activated. Masses of Japanese wandered around like zombies from a horror movie. Their hollow, drug induced voices floated all around her ears.

"Yes! I know! I'm getting married next month!"

"I'm going to the Paris office!"

Kallen felt a lump in her stomach.

"Refrain…" she murmured.

'_When you add 'em all up, they eventually break you'_

"Careful; it's dangerous to run around like that!"

The woman…it couldn't be…

"Mother?"

The Glasgow snatched the stumbling woman up as she tripped. Groggily, she sat up.

"Really, don't. I need you to keep an eye on your little sister!"

Kallen felt tears beginning to rise in her eyes.

"My God, mother, how weak a woman are you? First you give in to a man, then to Britannia, and now to this? My brother is gone forever! Let him go!"

An explosion rocked her Knightmare.

"The Knightpolice?"

She smashed the acceleration pedal and sped away.

"Shit!"

They began trading fire. The police unit's upgraded equipment showed its superiority as it blasted her weapons off one by one.

"Damn it!"

Kallen tried to drop her mother, but found that she just couldn't.

"I don't need you…I don't want you…"

But she couldn't drop the woman; she just couldn't. Her Glasgow skidded over the ground, its left leg shot out. Kallen's mother, still in a stupor, sat confusedly on the ground.

"Run, you idiot…" Kallen gasped. The police unit drove its knee into her Glasgow's cockpit block and swiped out a knife, raised high and poised to slice her in halves.

"I'm here for you…, Kallen," the drugged woman whispered, seemingly talking to her. "I'm here, as I always have been."

The girl gasped.

'_Is that why you stayed here? Stayed in his house? It was…for me?'_

She began to shake.

'_You fool!'_

The policeman's blade stabbed down, the blade glinting in the air.

"Or, maybe, I'm the fool," she whispered.

The Glasgow's arm blocked the downward swipe and locked with the other Glasgow. Kallen fired both her Harkens at the distant shelf. The reel tightened, hauling the struggling machines over the ground until the police Knightmare crashed into the shelf's ledge, tearing apart the cockpit block.

XXXXXXXXXX

The Britannians had the mountain encircled.

Lelouch smiled.

XXXXXXXXXX

Cornelia's Gloucester tore the Burais apart.

"They're too fragile," she remarked.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Impressive as always, Cornelia; a very logical deployment; however, excellent sensibilities are also easy to read."

He closed his book. The battle was getting more interesting.

XXXXXXXXXX

"What do you _mean_, shut off?" Misato demanded.

"Shut up, _Eleven_! Shut off is shut off!"

Her temper flared.

"I'm an agent with Nerv!"

She flashed her ID Card. Shinji gasped in awe, as did the soldiers. On the card was an imperial insignia, a sign of someone working directly for the Emperor himself; the soldiers can disrespect Misato's race, but they can't disrespect her card.

"It's shut off by order of Princess Cornelia; there's a battle going on."

'_I thought so!'_

"Is there any way through?" she asked.

"It'll be dangerous, but you can still use the highway," the soldier answered curtly.

"Many thanks"

Misato sped her way through the roadblock and down the empty path.

"Just perfect," she grumbled. "And just when we detect the Third Angel!"

Shinji began to ask, but an earth-shattering explosion shook the words out of his mouth. A torrent of thick mud and rocks smashed down the slope, swallowing the Britannian army whole.

"Holy shit-"

XXXXXXXXXX

The Gurren Mk. II

The first truly Japanese Knightmare

It smashed its hand into the Sutherland. Kallen squeezed the switch. A flash of radiant light seared her cameras as the Purist Faction machine ejected; its entire frame melted, and the wreckage erupted into flames.

"I won't lose; not with this Gurren Mk. II!"

She dashed ahead and attacked the rest of the squad. With its high performance and agile power, it smashed the Sutherlands in front of her effortlessly.

XXXXXXXXXX

Nerv-Centre Command Center

"The battle is irrelevant!"

Gendo Ikari pushed his glasses up and looked over at Sub-Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki.

"Where is the pilot?" he demanded.

"En route to Nerv; Captain Katsuragi is trapped by the battle there."

He smiled.

"This is very…inconvenient."

He watched as the dot on the map marking the Angel advanced.

"I'm sure this will stop the fight."

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji's face smacked into the dashboard

"What the hell?"

There was a huge rumble, and the monster advanced further.'

"Misato! What is that thing?" he screamed in horror.

"No…time…now!"

She smacked the car around and barely avoided the foot that crashed down on the pavement next to her.

"Shit! Where are the Britannian forces when you need them?"

XXXXXXXXXX

"What _is_ it?" Princess Euphemia demanded. "What is that thing?"

"We don't know! But it's wiping out our forces! We're bringing it up on screen now!"

The entire command center drew in a deep breath when the image of the monster appeared. It was otherworldly, with a sharply beaked face and beady eyes, along with what looked like ribs, and an iridescent orb at its center. Gunfire glanced off of it without ever scathing its hide.

"To all Britannian forces, this is Gendo Ikari of Nerv. Please withdraw your forces _at once_. The thing you just saw cannot be destroyed by conventional means. Nerv, on the other hand, has all the means necessary."

"Why, you-"

The Eleven on the screen stared intently at them, not blinking even as he beheld Princess Cornelia.

"Again, Highness, please withdraw."

"Euphy!"

Euphemia turned in surprise. Her sister's comm. link appeared next to the man who called himself Gendo Ikari.

"Withdraw your forces! That thing's a monster! There's no way we can beat it!"

Another picture snapped up. It was a red-haired girl, younger than even Euphemia, but she sat in what was obviously a knightmare cockpit.

"Your Highnesses, Asuka Langley, Knight of Two, humbly at your service."

"Asuka!"

Cornelia sounded happy.

"What happened? You were ordered away by father, weren't you?"

"And now I'm back," she said. "With instructions from his Majesty; let Nerv handle this."

"Lady Langley, I hope that you will follow the plan exactly?"

"Of course; Langley, out!"

Her screen disappeared.

"Lady Langley's personal forces have arrived! And…"

The soldier gagged on his own words.

"That signature—her IFF—it's the same as the monster!"

Gendo Ikari peered at them.

"There is no need to worry; her Ladyship will come with your forces for now. We simply need to carry out a test on this target. In the meanwhile, I beseech you, graciously follow Lady Langley's instructions and assist us in our battle."

"Understood, Mr. Ikari," Euphemia replied before her generals could say anything.

"Thank you, Highness."

XXXXXXXXXX

Asuka tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Let the battle commence!"

Her Gloucester dropped down and fired its thrusters. The knightmare glided down gracefully, without any use of her harkens. She landed neatly on a ledge on the road and hoisted her VARIS rifle.

"Let's see what you can do!" she snarled savagely. "All forces fall back and form a defensive line at the edge of the mountain!"

"Yes, my Lady!" her soldiers chimed in unison.

The Angel stepped around the mountain and began to advance.

"Listen up; we won't be able to destroy it. Don't throw away your lives for empty glory! I don't want to see a single one of you dead."

She looked at the humongous monster looming ahead of her.

"We're going to keep it coming at us. Nerv will launch an attack when the target reaches the predetermined point."

Lady Asuka Langley, heir and last daughter of both the Langley and Zeppelin bloodlines, kicked her machine into battle.

"Launch the attack!"

Her VARIS rifle spat a green globule of energy at the Angel. A shimmering octagonal barrier of light flashed into place.

'_That must be its A.T. Field.'_

Her soldiers opened fire simultaneously, followed by artillery and aerial bombing from both across the mountain and from the remnant Britannian forces.

Asuka pressed down hard, barely avoiding a shaft of blinding that that vaporized a chunk of the mountain, along with a sizable part of her knightmare squadrons.

"Fall back! Second squad, cover the retreat!" she snarled.

'_This isn't good! How long is it going to be before that damn Unit launches?'_

The monster's arm fired a spear-like shot at the ground, scattering a squad of stragglers. One Sutherland tripped and fell, struggling helplessly as the monster drove its arm spear down. At the last second, Asuka's Gloucester snatched it by the head and avoided destruction of the cockpit block. The knightmare's legs were vaporized by whatever it was in the monster's arm.

"My Lady!" the soldier sounded young. Most likely, he was some kind of rookie.

"Shut up and get out!" she snapped.

"Yes!"

The pilot ejected, and Asuka cast away the ruined Sutherland.

"These things cost me good money from _my_ family estates!"

There were way too many rookies like him hanging around in the Imperial armed forces. Asuka fired her bazooka to no avail, and could only watch helplessly as the escape pod with the newly rescued soldier disintegrated in another of the cross-shaped beams. She felt like screaming. Losing a soldier of any caliber hurt her.

"Where the hell is the Eva? At this rate, I'll take out my own Evangelion!"

"No, my Lady," Gendo Ikari said smoothly. "The pilot has already arrived. It shouldn't take so long to relieve you."

"My soldiers are dying! I'm falling back!"

"As you wish. In fact, withdraw completely."

"Huh?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Lelouch's Burai screeched down the winding dirt path, accompanied by the Gurren , Lancelot and Cornelia's Gloucester.

"So that thing is not from Britannia?"

"I was going to ask if that was your weapon."

Zero glanced at the Britannian knightmares.

"Then whose weapon is it?" he wondered.

"Sir, is it…even a weapon?" Kallen interjected. She had just attempted to engage the thing, and it had…looked so weirdly at her. Something had glinted, and she just jumped away in time to avoid being vaporized. Still, her Gurren had taken quite a bit of damage.

"What do you think it is?"

"A…living thing…its eyes were staring right at me."

Zero gripped his controls hard.

'_A living thing…a paranormal…supernatural creature…'_

Cornelia glanced over.

"Zero…any tricks up your sleeves?"

"Not quite…"

A Black Knights Burai sped up next to them.

"Zero! The Britannians are all retreating!"

A moment later, Cornelia hissed in surprise. On her screen was a message from Asuka:

_Get out of the area now. They're going to blow that thing up._

"With what?" she demanded out loud.

"What was that, Highness?" Suzaku asked. She ignored him

"Zero, we're going to have to get out. Nerv is going to blow this thing up!"

Lelouch snapped sideways.

"Impossible! No explosive can damage it! We've tried!"

Overhead, high-pitched whines signaled the fleeing Britannian air forces. On land, the remaining knightmares streamed away at maximum throttle.

"My Lady, if the Second Knight is going to retreat like this, then maybe…"

"Zero," Cornelia snapped. "We have to go!"

'_A retreat…no…running from the battlefield…with my enemy…how strange'_

He sat back and hit maximum speed on his Burai.

"All unit, get out of there!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Euphemia looked back, scared, as her forces hauled away from the monster, which was being peppered by distraction shots. There, clear against the blue sky, was the red Gloucester, hopping about and firing its VARIS rifle. That girl…Euphemia knew her. She was only thirteen when she officially became a Knight of the Round. Now, she was out there, almost alone, yelling at her men to abandon her while facing off that indestructible thing singlehandedly.

"Asuka Langley…you are a brave girl; a true knight at heart," she murmured.

"Highness, the civilians have been evacuated."

She nodded.

"Mr. Ikari, please commence your operation. Lady Langley, kindly retreat now."

The redhead's forehead was covered in sweat and a grim satisfaction.

"Got it"

XXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXX

"All friendlies have been evacuated."

"Good. Commence the N2 Mine test."

"Roger"

Gendo Ikari watched the screen impassively as a single ballistic missile launched from a secure Nerv launcher building.

XXXXXXXXXX

Asuka winced as her Gloucester's hatch was sliced open by the recovery crew. Her machine was totaled beyond repair, and towed out of the immediate danger zone. A few seconds later, a streak of light flashed across the sky. It was a missile of some sort, and it was headed right at the monster.

"All personnel, take cover. I repeat, take cover," the speaker announced. Lacking a better place to go, Asuka ducked back into the Gloucester's cockpit. As the sound of the missile faded, a blinding flash seared her eyes despite the protection of the knightmare. A moment later, a shockwave lifted the knightmare off the ground and hurled it away. Asuka screamed in fear and pain as she was smashed against the walls of the cockpit. After what seemed to be infinity, she crumpled onto the ground outside her knightmare. The rescue crew's truck was badly damaged, and they crawled out slowly, looking on in awe at the hellish landscape. The entire mountain had gone, replaced by a deep, glowing crater. It was ringed by circles of blasted and glassed earth, encircled by clouds of thick smoke, and burnt black.

Asuka cradled her ringing head and got up, trembling.

"Mein gott…what the hell did they just use?"

Even the sky was stained bloody red by the simple power of the weapon.

XXXXXXXXXX

Zero jerked out of his seat as his Burai was thrown through the air and down onto the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL"

Cornelia's knightmare was down as well. Where there had been a mountain, there was now a glowing crater.

"Is that…Nerv's attack?" Lelouch gasped.

"It would seem so…" Cornelia gritted her teeth in pain.

"The monster…they went to such lengths to destroy it."

Lelouch slapped the Burai's controls.

"My Burai is damaged. What about your machines?"

"Lancelot is operational."

"Gurren is combat-capable."

"My energy filler is empty," Cornelia hissed. Her machine fell to its knees and collapsed.

Suzaku glanced at Lancelot's power meter. It was also running low.

"All of the Black Knights forces are currently non-operational," Kallen reported. "We've lost contact with almost all our people. We're alone here."

Lancelot's factosphere sensors rapidly scanned the crater for any sign of movement.

"The sensors are jammed; there's too much interference, but…oh, God…"

The wind's howl changed pitch.

A shadowy figure stood hunched in the distance; a bright orb glowed at the center of its chest.

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji stared at the blonde leading them in the small boat across a strange, lake like body of red liquid. The boat slowed and parked itself next to a huge metal wall, from which an arm can be seen to protrude.

"So you think Unit 01's going to be able to activate, huh?" Misato asked.

"It isn't likely, but the probability is not zero."

"Honestly, Ritsuko, I think that a 0.000000009% probability of activation is a bit too low…it'll take a miracle."

The boat docked at a small dock attached to the wall. The occupants of the boat exited their boat and entered the wall through a small side door. Suddenly, the door hissed shut and enveloped them in darkness.

"Hey! Why is it so dark in here?"

A single, bright light blazed on, and Shinji screamed.

**End Stage II**


	3. I'll Pilot It

Code Evangelion

**Stage III: I'll Pilot It**

The face was terrifying. Two glowing eyes set over a wicked smile, and a horn topping it all. The purple robot glared at the occupants of what can now be seen as a bridge.

"Is-is this my father's work?"

"Correct," Gendo Ikari's imperious voice stated. Shinji looked up. There was the man, standing behind a thick pane of glass, aloof and inaccessible to Shinji as always.

"So…this is why you…left us?"

He had said he needed to work, to build a weapon…Shinji had assumed that it was going to save Japan…

So this was it; the weapon

A weapon handed straight into the hands of Britannia.

Maybe that was why it looked so furious.

"Why, father…?"

He was looking down, afraid to look up and meet the man's gaze.

"Why did you abandon me? You knew the invasion was going to reach where I was. Why did you leave me then? And why did you call me here now?"

He clenched his fists.

"GIVE ME AN EXPLANATION!" he screamed.

"You were a burden to me then. You are useful now." Gendo said calmly. "It is as simple as it sounds. I have a use for you, so I called you."

Shinji looked back down.

"So, in the end, you just wanted to use me…is that all I am to you, a tool?"

"Is that what you believe yourself to be in my eyes?"

Shinji was silent. Far-away explosions shook the facility.

"It's moving again."

"What?"

"The Angel, the thing that you just saw; it should have recovered from the N2 mine blast," Gendo said. "It wouldn't be long before we are attacked."

Another explosion, this time more distinct, hit the base. The overhead lights trembled.

"And…"

Misato intervened.

"Wait, commander, what are you going to do? Unit 00 is still in cryostasis!"

She gasped in horror.

"You're going to use Unit 01?"

Ritsuko stepped in.

"It's our only option. That Angel must be destroyed."

"But…"Misato struggled with the facts. "Rei can't pilot…Lady Langley is with Princess Euphemia's forces…we have no pilot!"

"We just got one," Ritsuko said coldly. "Shinji, _you_ will pilot it."

He was surprised and scared, despite the fact that he knew, in the pit of his stomach, that something like this will happen, since they showed him this machine.

"You're telling me to take this thing and…and fight that monster?"

"Correct"

He shook with rage.

"Father…how can you do this to me? I thought…I thought that you didn't want me anymore…"

"You are of use to me," he repeated. "Therefore, I have called you."

"But I can't…I just can't! I've never even…seen anything like this before!"

"You will be instructed"

His excuses were flying out the window, along with his nerves.

"I JUST CAN'T!" he screamed.

Misato…she looked so disappointed. Gendo betrayed a hint of a scowl.

"Fuyutsuki," he said. "Wake up Rei."

The image of the elderly man speared on a screen.

"Can we use her?"

"She's not dead…yet."

Shinji watched helplessly as orders were given to reconfigure "Unit 01" for the mysterious Rei.

"_I knew it! I'm not needed after all!"_

'_But it's my own fault that I'm not needed. I could have agreed…'_

'_No! It's father's fault! It's father's fault!'_

'_It's your own fault.'_

Something clinked gently in the distance. A moment later, the door to the Cage opened, and bed was wheeled in. On it was a slim girl, with bandages covering one eye and wrapping around one arm. She looked too fragile to fight.

The nurse and doctor exited, leaving Rei alone on her gurney. Still gasping in pain, she struggled up.

"What are you still doing here?" Gendo demanded. "You've proven yourself unusable. Get out, now. You will only get in the way."

Overhead, a lightning bolt of cross-shaped energy sank through the dome of the Geo Front. Buildings previously affixed to the dome fell inwards, creating a barrage of shockwaves that threw the occupants of the Cage in all directions and dislodged the already flickering overhead lights.

"Look out!" Misato yelled. It was too late; the heavy lamps crashed down over Shinji's head. A split second later, the liquid immersed hand of Unit 01 splashed over the bridge. A huge hand loomed over Shinji as he cowered on the ground.

"The Eva activated itself!" a technician screamed. "It tore off the arm bindings!"

Ritsuko struggled to sit up from where she'd fallen.

"That's impossible! The Eva moved without any kind of interface?"

Holding on to the rail of the bridge, Misato stared at the spectacle.

"It moved on its own? Was it trying to protect something?"

Her eyes fell upon Shinji.

'_It's him! It's got to be him!'_

XXXXXXXXXX

He could still feel the pain in his bones from the jarring explosions. They reminded him…of the invasion. Back then, constant explosions had racked his world, too.

The girl called Rei lay limp next to her overturned gurney. Shinji ran to her in fear. It would've been his fault if she got hurt here. With the svelte body in his arms, he could feel the tremble of her muscles. They constantly tightened, released, and twitched as she shuddered in pain. Something hot and wet began to slide into Shinji's palm, and he held it up to see the blood dripping from it.

Her blood, staining his hand

Because he'd run away.

"I…I mustn't run away! I mustn't run away! I mustn't run away!"

If he can save people…then fighting wouldn't be so bad.

"I'll do it!" he yelled. "I'll pilot it!"

XXXXXXXXXX

"Milady-"

"Now's not the time!" Asuka roared. "I want to know why that bastard dropped that bomb while _my men_ were still in the area! What a disgrace! A good dozen of my wounded killed by friendly fire!"

"Milady, please; the order to inform her Highness Princess Euphemia of the N2 Mine was given _after_ the missile had already been launched!" the Nerv officer stammered.

"And who the hell dares to be so foolish? Do they not know whose soldiers are fighting out there?"

"The order…came from Commander Ikari, Milady."

Gendo Ikari

Eleven

Mad scientist

And one of the Emperor's red-hot favorites

"Mein gott…"

The Knight of Two was hardly in a position to complain about it.

She shut off the line and stalked off. Even the best friend of both Euphemia and Cornelia li Britannia was powerless against a man so deep into Charles zi Britannia's favor.

How had that Eleven done it?

She almost immediately chastised herself. It wasn't her noble birth that made her great; in fact, she despised her nobility, the hordes of suitors and playboys that crowed at her feet, and the feeling of having been cheated out of a struggle for her status.

"Get me Earl Asplund; see if his new knightmare is still functional. And get me a Sutherland with a prototype MVS on it."

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji gagged as a deep, amber liquid sloshed into his lungs. Each breath strained his lungs, and his chest burned with the effort of breathing the dense medium.

"I think I'm going to be sick…" he moaned.

"Quit complaining! You're a man, aren't you?" Misato chided. "Begin the launch sequence!"

In the back, Gendo Ikari watched impassively the launch sequence commencing.

"Are you sure about this, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked. "The plan isn't certain that this would work."

"You saw, as well as I, Yui's reaction. There is little doubt that he can do it."

"It all rests on your faith, Ikari…"

"No; faith does nothing. You know this as well as I, Fuyutsuki. The future of man must be free from such uncertainties as faith."

From the front of the command center, Misato turned.

"Sir…"

Gendo nodded. The Captain turned back.

"Evangelion Unit 01, launch!"

The base reverberated with the sound and force of the electromagnetic linear catapult that shot Unit 01 away from Nerv's underground Cage towards the surface. The steel frame of the tunnel rattled as the Eva flew past it in a blur. Aboveground, a steel bulkhead ground open, and the end of two rails spat out, locking into place with a clang. Unit 01 rose out of the earth, following its rails, and stopped abruptly as the rail ran out.

The Angel turned as it walked through the street across from the Eva. As it focused on the machine, the Core at its chest glowed.

Shinji shivered in fear

Misato crossed her fingers

'_Shinji…don't die out there!'_

XXXXXXXXXX

Lelouch exited the Burai to a desolate sight. There was nothing in front of him; only a giant crater glowing with a sinister, radioactive aura. If the Britannians, or some group affiliated with Britannia, had this, then…then his quest to destroy Britannia is finished…

"Cornelia, you say that this is none of your doing?"

Did he just detect a hint of anger from the Witch of Britannia to the suggestion that someone has suggested that she would throw around a weapon of mass destruction?

"Zero, I was going to ask you the same thing. I wouldn't have been surprised if your organization precipitated such an attack."

Lelouch laughed to himself; this was a good chance to intimidate her a little.

"Why would we waste a weapon like this on an unknown? For all we know, that thing could have been engineered by the Chinese Federation or the European Union against Britannia. Combined with that, a weapon such as has been deployed would likely wipe out any sized force in the way."

Cornelia stiffened at the slight twitch of Zero's head.

'_Could the Black Knights have done that? A weapon of that power…could they possibly have one?'_

She kept a straight face and nodded lightly.

"Of course not"

XXXXXXXXXX

'_Just think of walking…'_

This was stupid; how did father expect him to pilot this thing? For heaven's sake, he wasn't exactly Amuro Ray, or whatever that kid's name was, from that Gundam show…

"Walk…" he hissed at the machine. No doubt, the monster, the "Angel," was laughing at him…

Why was he even doing this? He didn't know the Rei girl, yet he had felt the need to protect someone else in need.

The Evangelion's leg wobbled and the entire construct collapsed to the ground. An unearthly bolt of pain shot through Shinji, as if he, and not the robot, had fallen.

"Shinji, get up!" Misato screamed. "Get moving!"

'_Get up! Get up!'_

The robot wasn't moving.

"Oh, SHIT!"

The Angel lifted Unit 01 by the head effortlessly. Shinji cried out as his heck received the sensation of dangling several dozen stories' worth of Evangelion.

The Angel gripped Unit 01's forearm, and its biceps exploded in size. Shinji screamed with the added pain.

"Where is Unit 01's A.T. Field?" Ritsuko demanded.

"Unable to activate; synchronization rate is falling rapidly!" Lieutenant Maya Ibuki cried.

Unit 01's wrist crunched under the Angel's claw. Shinji's howl pierced the command center with agony. The Angel released Unit 01 and let her dangle for a second, before spearing her in the eye with a strange, beam-like blade. The blade snaked in and out of the back of the thing's arm, smashing into Unit 01's face repeatedly.

"Cranial case cracking, damage to brain—she can't take it anymore!" Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga yelled. "Any more and—"

The spear tore through Unit 01's skull. The machine flew backwards and smacked into a building. The spear retracted, and she crumpled. Twin geysers of blood shot out of both sides of her head.

"Damn it, Shinji!"

Misato whirled to face the technicians.

"What's Unit 01's status?"

"All systems down; no response from the life-support systems. We can't monitor the pilot!"

"Target is advancing!"

Misato felt sweat dripping down her palms. With Unit 01 gone, this would be over in minutes.

The Angel loomed over the inert Evangelion and lifted its arm.

"Eject the pilot!" Misato yelled. "Save _something_!"

"We CAN'T! It's completely out of control!"

The Angel's arm boiled into a ball of flames.

"That fancy robot not working?" a voice yelled sarcastically. A Sutherland with a bazooka fell out of a carrier, rapidly firing.

"Need a little help?"

Asuka threw away the spent bazooka. The Sutherland was a few dozen meters off the ground when she fired both harkens into a nearby building. The line screeched as the Sutherland's vector snapped by ninety degrees. Its landspinners hit the ground running, and Asuka swiped out the prototype MVS into her hand and jumped. Still pulled by the Harkens, the Sutherland plunged its MVS down the Core of the Angel. A blazing shield of glowing octagons slapped the Sutherland to a halt, but the tip of the sword had gotten through before the shield fully deployed.

"I'm getting tired of this shit!" Asuka roared. The MVS glowed white with the full power that Asuka pumped into it. At the same time the Harkens tore out of its anchorage, the MVS broke and exploded, throwing the Sutherland to the ground.

"The Sutherland is down!" Maya reported. "Target is undamaged!"

Shigeru Aoba suddenly perked up.

"Confirming energy reading from Unit 01; it's reactivating!"

"GOTT—VERDAMNT—"

Something huge leapt over the Sutherland and tackled the Angel. The entire mass of metal and monster slid through the streets, leaving a deep gash through the ground.

Unit 01 reared its head and bellowed to the sickly moon. Sharp fangs protruded out of its jaws, slit-like eyes expanded into glowing orbs, and its good arm brought a resounding smash into the Angel's Core.

"Lady Langley!"

The Lancelot had landed next to the damaged Sutherland.

Unit 01 tore into the Angel insanely. The earth trembled with the force of each blow.

"We're retreating, milady. Please, let's go!"

Asuka smacked Suzaku away.

"I'm not retreating," she snarled.

Unit 01 was thrown into the air by a bright violet beam from the Angel's Core. The edges of the beam vaporized entire blocks into oblivion. The Lancelot snapped out its Blaze Luminous shield and knocked Asuka's Sutherland to the ground. Though they were a good two hundred meters from the Angel, the two Knightmares were lifted into the air by the force of the beam. Lancelot's shield arm broke off as its shield overloaded, and the Sutherland auto-ejected when its legs were melted.

Unit 01's feet dug into the street, and its lower back smashed into the building behind it. She snarled and catapulted back at the Angel. Her left pylon produced an ornate snap-out blade, whose blade lit red, revealing its maser-vibration nature. Approximately three-fourth the length of Unit 01's forearm, it sliced into the Angel's A.T. Field with a burst of sparks.

"Unit 01's A.T. Field is expanding; it's neutralizing the phase-space."

"No!" Ritsuko declared. "It's breaking through it!"

The blade lit orange with Unit 01's Field, and stabbed through the Angel's Field. As it sliced down, it made an unpleasant sound like tearing cloth. Several seconds later, Unit 01 had the Angel by its beaklike face. After grinding it into the ground, Unit 01 heaved it by its bony ribs and ripped a pair out. The bones came loose with a sickening crack, crunch and spray of purple blood. The Eva let them fall limp, held its knife in both hands, and stabbed down. The tip cracked through the outside layer of the Core, and more fluid sprayed out in small, steamy jets when the glowing blade cut into the interior of the orb.

The Angel screeched and, in a last desperate attempt to destroy Unit 01, twisted its limbs around the Eva. Its ruined Core blazed to life.

"It's going to self destruct!" Misato cried in alarm.

**End Stage III**


	4. Britannia

_Code Evangelion_

**Stage IV: Britannia**

Suzaku

Suzaku Kururugi clambered out of Lancelot's cockpit, and was instantly hit with the overwhelming scent of destruction. The immediate surroundings of the Tokyo Settlement lay in ruins, and the afterglow of the cross of fire still dazzled his eyes. Next to him, the Sutherland lay in a twisted heap of metal. Its cockpit was gone, so the Knight of Two was most likely alive.

Behind him, the remains of the city glowed like embers. The monsters, both of them, were veiled in a curtain of smoke and dust. Suzaku found it intriguing that even the Britannian settlement can be brought so low. Frankly, it reminded him of Shinjuku.

On his wrist transponder, the ejected cockpit's IFF signature signaled him directly ahead. Racing through the derelict streets, he came face to face with a very angry-looking teenage girl, even younger than himself.

"You!" she barked. "Are you the pilot of the Lancelot?"

For a fourteen-year old, she was so very bossy and authoritative.

"Yes…my lord."

What else could he say? She was high nobility.

"I suppose I owe you some thanks now, soldier," she replied gruffly. "Is your Knightmare still working?"

"The shield arm is damaged…but it should move," he said hesitantly. She had on a tight-fitting, elaborately gilded pilot suit with a long black cape, the sign of a Round, though they were now torn and more ripped than he was comfortable with. She was beautiful, even as she hugged her cape around her shoulders against the cool night air.

"Lead the way, Major…"

"Kururugi, ma'am; Suzaku Kururugi"

For a second, Asuka seemed surprised at the name, though she quickly brought a blank face back over her disturbance.

"I see. Well then, lead the way, Major Kururugi."

The sound of his name in connection with the Britannian military was enough to elicit a questioning doubt in most people; she took the information, new to her as it must be, with considerable grace. It earned her a healthy dose of respect in Suzaku's eyes.

Asuka

As Asuka followed the Japanese man—no, he was still a mere boy—it disturbed her that he was already a Major and in charge of so important a machine, although her fourteen years were in no position to complain—she took stock of the damage to the city.

Euphy and Cornelia were going to have a _lot_ to fix. Asuka winced at the very thought of all that paperwork. Someone had to shoulder the blame for this fiasco.

And she'd love to see Gendo Ikari take the fall.

XXXXXXXXXX

The soft hum of Lancelot's engines seems to have lulled the Knight of Two to sleep, and Suzaku was left alone to contemplate the series of events that ultimately put him here, in Lancelot's cockpit, carrying a sleeping Knight of the Round.

_Light shone all through his darkened world; it seems that no time has passed since he was shot by his commanding officer for trying to protect Lelouch Lamprouge._

_A face appeared; it was a Britannian with brightly white hair and square glasses. He was grinning rather stupidly at Suzaku. In a stupor, Suzaku listened as the man explained how he was saved by his father's pocket watch. It had taken the bullet as it entered his body armor._

_He continued to listen with increasing incredulity as the man, Lloyd, explained that he, Suzaku Kururugi, the son of former Japanese Prime Minister, was to pilot a top-secret experimental knightmare frame._

_Lancelot_

…

_Prince Clovis was assassinated, and Suzaku was blamed._

"_Just confess, God damn it! Confess, and you'll be tried as a human being, not some goddamn Eleven!"_

_The interrogator probably had more pleasant things to do than interrogate Suzaku. All the evidence pointed towards him as the assassin anyway, so why did he need to bother conducting a proper investigation?_

_Suzaku felt only emptiness on the transport to his trial. Then, a miracle happened._

"_My name is Zero!"_

"_It was _I_ who killed Clovis!"_

_Zero's debut, his claim of responsibility threw doubt on everything; enough to have Suzaku acquitted. Suzaku was grateful, but still refused to ally _

_The ends do not justify the means; Machiavelli's doctrines do not apply to this era._

_Or does it? The nobility certainly behave in that way._

_Nevertheless, Suzaku chose what he thought was right. As a Britannian soldier, he will change the system from inside out._

_Even to him, that sounded foolish, but it was better than being a terrorist._

_Still, is he just being self-righteous again?_

XXXXXXXXXX

"What a mess…"

C.C. raised an eyebrow as she surveyed the impressive amount of damage wreaked upon the settlement. Lelouch, sitting beside her, looked distinctly annoyed.

C.C. understood; the arrival of the monster threw off all of his plans. Now, there was a powerful new force to be reckoned with.

"If this monster can do so much damage, then imagine its potential for destroying Britannia…"

He trailed off, toying with the King chess piece that he always touted.

"Do you expect to control it?"

"Will Geass?"

C.C. honestly did not know, although she did observe a symbol on the monster's forehead resembling the mark on her own. Perhaps, they were immune to the effects of Geass, as she was.

One could never know.

They sat together on top of the Black Knights' command car, breathing in the fresh night air. C.C. hugged her knees to her chest while Lelouch, ever the former Prince, reclined regally. Neither spoke for a long time.

"This will force Britannia to cooperate to some degree," Lelouch remarked at length. "Perhaps we can get more out of this situation that we would otherwise."

It was a dry and formal comment which refused to diffuse the tense, silent atmosphere, until Kallen appeared on the ground.

"Sir, there is a message for you from Princess Cornelia."

Zero smirked.

"Doubtlessly with an offer of peace"

He swept his cape open.

"Lead me; I shall tend to her Highness."

XXXXXXXXXX

Several days later, in the Nerv Hospital Center, Shinji Ikari's head still rang with confused noises. In an attempt to quiet his mind, he took a walk in the brightly lit hallway. Such simple cleanliness in itself seemed to him like a strange luxury, compared with living in the ghetto.

A stretcher passed by, disrupting his thoughts. On it was the girl from Nerv, the blue-haired girl whose condition had inspired him to pilot the Eva.

Rei, wasn't it?

She looked at him coldly. Her calm face made Shinji wonder if she had any emotions at all.

Still, she was a pretty thing; her skin was a translucent, albino white, with a dark red eye set in a delicate face. The other eye was wrapped in thick gauze.

"Shinji Ikari…"

The boy jumped. Her whisper sounded like that of a ghost. The boy was slightly spooked, but by the time he tried to respond, her gurney was out of sight.

Shinji turned back to looking over the cityscape. Just another of the strange things that continually happen to him; he wondered if Nunnally ever needed to think of anything besides enjoying life.

XXXXXXXXXX

"I see your point."

Zero's mask was ever so annoying to Cornelia li Britannia. How dare anyone of his rank show such disrespect as wearing a mask from an Imperial Princess?

But a deal was needed here; the monsters were, according to Ikari, going to keep coming. The Black Knights must be mollified, if this Area is to survive.

She leaned forwards.

"Zero, by cooperating with us, you and your organization will be pardoned completely for your acts of terrorism. Not only that, but the Black Knights will be allowed to serve as an independent armed force adjunct to the regular Britannian military."

She scowled.

"What more can you want? Complete freedom for Japan?"

Besides Zero, Kallen perked at the thought.

Zero snickered.

"As enticing as your Highness's offer is, it is not even in the power of the Emperor to free an Area. I do not believe that _you_ will be able to do such a thing, even if I was to cooperate with you."

Kallen's shoulders sank; Zero was right, as always; no Princess can free an entire Area.

'_He did his homework alright…'_

Cornelia was fast running out of options.

'_My dear sister, your unrivaled skill in a Knightmare and valor on the battlefield does nothing for you here.'_

Zero continued to gaze at Cornelia without any further comment. His smug look made Cornelia's blood boil.

"Your Highness, in light of the current situation, it is the lives of people at stake which is most important. Of course the Black Knights will participate, but only on the condition that Numbers in this area be granted their natural rights as human beings, and that humanitarian aid and housing be set up for the Elevens massacred under Prince Clovis' orders."

'_What?'_

_Such easy demands for the full cooperation of the Black Knights…_

_Trap!_

"Shall we seal the deal, Princess? The rights of and help to the people of Area Eleven for a temporary truce as we ally ourselves against these monsters is only fair, don't you think?"

Cornelia paused, pulled back and, shaking her head in wonder, grasped Zero's gloved palm.

"It is agreed; bring out the documents for signing!"

What fools!

Lelouch mentally patted himself on the back. The conversation was being recorded and will be played live for all to hear. They will not perceive any sort of subtle political duel; only a fighter bargaining for his people, and he _did_ mention "temporary." The Black Knights will have time to reorganize, supply themselves with Britannian supplies and get stronger as the monsters tore down Britannia's defenses. The care for the Elevens, in particular, will heap more laurels on Zero's crown.

He let go of Cornelia's hand.

A good day's work asked for a good day's rewards. Maybe he'll go out with Shirley tonight and lose himself a little in the lives, loves and pleasures of the ordinary people.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Misato…wait…!"

The woman paused to let him catch up.

"Felling okay, Shinji?" she asked cheerily.

"Fine…"

"No, you're not. Let's go; you'll be living with me now."

"WHAT—what is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what you think it means."

Shinji fell silent in wonder.

"I thought…I was to live with my Aunt?"

"Your family has been provided for; Zero secured housing and care for all Elevens from Princess Cornelia."

"Zero…?"

Shinji felt growing respect for the man, even though he was a terrorist.

"It was part of a deal for the Black Knights to cooperate temporarily with Britannia in light of recent events; Zero broadcast it all over the nation, and everyone loves him for it, except the hard-line nationalists."

Shinji was secretly glad that Zero had risen to power. He was the Elevens' pride and hope, after all.

"Excuse me," a deep voice interrupted. "But are you Ikari Shinji?"

"Yes…"

A Britannian soldier walked up. He wore the standard Britannian uniform, along with the insignia of some great House. Obviously, he is a private soldier of a nobleman.

Surprisingly, he had the face of an Eleven.

"I am here with a message from Lady Asuka Langley, Knight of Two of the Holy Britannian Emperor and commander of the forces of the Houses of Langley and Zeppelin," the soldier said stiffly. "She wishes you to know that she gives you all due thanks and acknowledgement for your timely rescue, but also that you have caused the destruction of major sections of a great metropolis, for which you must bear responsibility. That is all."

What?

Who is this person? Did Shinji know her, and…why does a Britannian noblewoman have a Japanese name? A pretty name, granted, but still Japanese…

"Will you graciously reply to her message?"

"Yes, we will," Misato interceded.

"And you are?"

"Captain Misato Katsuragi of Nerv; I am in charge of Shinji Ikari."

"Then you will kindly reply to her Ladyship?"

Misato glanced at Shinji, who was bewildered at the strange, formal tones used in the dialogue.

"Misato, what should I…"

"Thank her, Shinji," Misato hissed. "Keep it short!"

"Um…well…" Shinji stuttered. Misato winced; the boy is so damn green, he can't even put on a proper show.

"Thank you…Miss…"

Misato ribbed him hard.

"…Lady Langley…" he corrected himself. "Ah…and…"

"That will be all," Misato interjected. "Nerv thanks Lady Langley for her heroic actions during the battle, which turned the tide and saved a victory. To her will all due credit go."

Shinji watched in bewilderment as the two adults eyed each other, and the soldier nodded and made his excuses.

As his back disappeared, Shinji tugged on Misato's sleeve.

"Misato, what was _that_ all about?"

Misato glared at him.

"Are you really that stupid? Can't you tell what was going on?"

"No…"

Misato ran a hand over her face.

"She sent somebody to test you out, to see what you're like; she wants to see what you're like, so as to better deal with you later, and of course she thanks you; it's easy to see that she's interested in winning you over. On top of that, she's making sure that you feel some remorse for the results of the battle."

She opened her car door.

"We've got a lot of coaching to do for you."

XXXXXXXXXX

"My Lady, what do you think?"

Asuka shook her head lightly.

"Poor child; he might as well have lived in a cave. I can't blame him, though; growing up as a Number living under Britannian rule is hard."

The soldier opened the door of a nondescript van for Asuka.

"Thank you, Kaji. I think that I can survive a car trip without constant attendance," she said wryly.

Ryuji Kaji, her assigned guard since birth, nodded with tolerance for his mistress's sarcasm.

As he revved up the car's engine and drove through the open sections of the Tokyo Settlement.

"Housing shares here have plummeted ever since last week; my brothers will be furious; they invested so much in the Tokyo Settlement," Asuka commented drily. "I told them that investing here was a bad idea, though for…different reasons."

She sighed.

"This is a mess; I'd hate to have to patch their broken wallets with my own holdings in Area Four."

Just then, her phone rang. A glance at the screen made her smile.

"Well, well, look who's come a-begging!"

She picked up.

"Hello, brother. How do you do?" she asked sweetly. "What may I do for you?"

She pressed the speaker button.

"…am not well, sister. Do you think you can…graciously bail your brothers out? Our…"

"You need me to lend you money to cover your portfolios after your holdings in Area 11 collapsed due to the battles. Yes, I know, brother. I will, of course, as your ever dutiful sister, assist you in your need, but only on the condition that a_ll_ your holdings which I will bail out be changed under my name as the new owner."

"…What?"

"You heard me; I intend to buy all your holdings in Area 11 for a price which will satisfy the demands of your creditors. It is only a fair offer, brother. Not even as favors to the heir of Langley will anyone buy holdings as toxic as your lands in Area 11. Your sister, however, will ever attempt to be helpful to her brothers. If you consider this offer acceptable, then you know whom to contact. Good day."

She hung up.

"Quite well-handled, my Lady; Master Henry has no choice but to agree."

Asuka picked up a glass of cold water and gulped it down.

"In about a month or so, Area 11 will be a hotbed of military spending from the Emperor; the defense of Britannian territory is no light matter."

She tipped her glass at Kaji.

"And no cheap matter, either."

XXXXXXXXXX

Shinji gingerly met his relatives' disapproving gazes. Suddenly, his Britannian uniform felt as if it burned his skin.

"Well…I…guess I'll…see you later," he said awkwardly.

No one replied. As he exited, several children kicked at him before running off.

'_I only did what was necessary…'_

"Why didn't you let the Britannians burn?" his aunt asked as he stepped out the door. "Why did you have to save them?"

Shinji clenched the doorframe. Could his aunt think of nothing but to kill all Britannians?

Nunnally is a Britannian; she certainly doesn't deserve to die.

The vengeful spirits in the room bore down on him; he felt suffocated by their rage. Without answering, he left.

XXXXXXXXXX

_Some ten years ago…_

"_Father, why is that brat in our House? Why is she living as a daughter of the House of Langley, even though she is the offspring of a Number?"_

_Henry Langley, the young son of Grand Duke Pieter Langley, glared angrily at a young, redheaded girl who cringed under his stare._

"_You! Get out of the way!"_

_He shoved her hard, and the four-year girl old fell head over tail onto the ground. Cursing, Henry drove his foot into her side._

"_Why do you live in luxury, you _slave_? You brat, you daughter of an Eleven whore, how dare you live off of our House without service?"_

_The girl whimpered in pain._

"_Papa! Help, please!"_

_Henry's boot ground into her face and a spray of blood stained her shirtfront._

"_The Grand Duke is _my_ father, not yours!"_

"_ENOUGH!"_

_The Duke himself roared across the room as he picked Henry up and threw him away._

"_Father, what are you doing?—"_

_The Duke slapped him, hard._

"_What, do you think that the heir to our House may act like a barbarian?" He scolded. "Asuka stays and leaves on _my_ word, not yours!"_

"_She is a half-breed!"_

"_IT MATTERS NOT; SHE STAYS, AND WHILE SHE STAYS, YOU WILL _NOT_ BE SUCH A DISGRACE AGAIN!"_

_The young boy shot another look at the quivering girl._

"_Yes, father"_

Henry Langley shook his head. His half-sister had proven to be something of a prodigy in almost everything. Though she is technically still a guest of the House, she is widely accepted as the smartest and most capable of the Langley heirs. Not to mention the fact that, when she was merely twelve, she'd caught the Emperor's eye with an antique Ganymede in a school for aristocrats' extraneous children who were destined to serve under their siblings as Knightmare pilots. The recently widowed Emperor had, upon seeing her performance, gripped his chair for a moment, white-faced and wide-eyed. He had, of course, regained his composure very quickly, found out the pilot's name and, there and then, taken her away to a secluded instruction site. It was the talk of the town. Whatever this girl did had bewitched the Emperor completely, and a year later, at the tender age of thirteen, she was already flying the flag of a Knight of the Round, serving His Majesty.

Henry's hand grew white around his cup of tea. He was broke now; even with Asuka's money, he could barely make ends meet. That means that he'd have to disband his soldiers, close down his factories and sell all the rest of his paltry holdings, while that girl held almost all of the Langley family estates in her palm.

Henry wanted to cry.

Stupid bitch!

What would Father say? He was his last heir left with any sort of promise…

He failed, his brothers and sisters failed.

And Cinderella is back for her revenge.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Hey, Ikari"

Shinji turned to find a dark, Japanese boy coming at him from behind a heap of rubble.

"Looking fine in that Britannian livery, huh?" he said snidely. "How does it feel, working for the glory of Britannia?"

Before Shinji understood fully, a punch had connected squarely with his jaw, and he flew backwards into the dirt.

"Hey, lapdog," the boy roared. "The name's Suzahara. Your goddamn robot slammed a ton of rubble on my sister, and she's dyin', but the Britannians won't give her no damn treatment 'cause she's an _Eleven_. She was at home for weeks, her legs crushed, and nobody gave a damn. So how's it feel, betraying your own people? That nice suit feels comfortable, traitor?"

He strode over, kicked Shinji hard in the ribs and deliberately scuffed dirt onto his uniform.

"Don't come here again," he said, and spat on Shinji's face.

**End Stage IV**


	5. Mustn't Run Away

Code Evangelion

**Stage V: Mustn't Run Away**

"He's alright, of course?"

Misato was cross that Section 2 had let Shinji be attacked, but apparently it was not intended to be deadly, so they ignored it. Stiff bastards, she thought. Screw their regulations! It's a shame, seeing him limp home in his ruined uniform.

"I knew it was a bad idea to send him in that uniform!"

"Are you ashamed of a Britannian uniform, Captain?" a voice asked behind her. Misato jumped. The woman standing there was dressed lavishly in a bright, violet coat with golden lacing and a large cape. Her lips and eyes were painted bright, royal purple. Hastily, Misato dropped to one knee in front of Cornelia li Britannia.

"Your Highness, I did not expect you to be here!" Misato exclaimed, but Cornelia waved it off.

"You may rise, Captain Katsuragi," she said. "But remember to be careful with our assets. Everything is valuable on the battlefield."

"Yes, ma'am"

Misato rose and put on her coat. The princess moved to her desk and glanced with disdain at the mess that Misato always left it in. Misato blushed, embarrassed.

"As temporary Viceroy of Area 11, I believe that I am privy to a report on the…Evangelions, as I have been told they are called," Cornelia asked. "Just what are they?"

Misato cleared her throat and sized up the Princess before replying.

"You would do better to ask the technical department, ma'am. I really have no idea myself."

Cornelia's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Something smelled fishy, and the Eleven wasn't telling everything that she knows.

"Is that so, Captain Katsuragi? To the best of my knowledge, the Knight of Two, a dear personal friend of mine, happens to be a viable pilot who has consented,"

—Of course, knowing Asuka Langley, this is probably an offer she'd never refuse—

"—and I am highly concerned about the safety of these machines. The last time one was deployed, it seems to have gone out of control, which resulted in heavy mental damage to the pilot that left him in the hospital for nearly a week. It would be…a catastrophe of a grave nature if one of His Majesty's Knights of the Round was lost thus."

'_So, that girl has some pretty high-up friends; the Second Imperial Princess, no less. Not too bad for a half-breed brat.'_

"Rest assured, your Highness. That was an isolated incident and will not occur again."

"I sincerely hope that you're right," Cornelia said coldly.

A singular wail tore through the room as the alarm went off. The walls exploded into a splurge of red as warnings dotted the screen.

"Alert, alert; enemy has been detected. All personnel proceed to Battle Stations, Level One."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Are you still mad, Touji?" a wiry boy with glasses asked.

"Of course! Are you dumb, Kensuke? That kid's a traitor!"

Kensuke found it hard to argue with his friend's logic. After all, it was true that the boy had gone over to work for the Britannians, and then dared to come back in a brand-new Britannian uniform. Everyone was angry, and he couldn't blame them.

"Yea, but he did fight to protect us all, Britannians and Japanese alike. That monster sure did kill a lot of Britannian soldiers."

"He's still an idiot!" Touji roared. "Why'd he have to crash that thing through the Settlement like that? Does he even know how to use it?"

He slammed his fist against his knee and, to Kensuke's surprise, began to sob.

"Aww, jeez, man, I'm sorry 'bout your sister. She'll be fine, okay? Zero worked his magic, so everything should be fine."

Touji's back heaved silently on despite his friend's words. Sighing, Kensuke patted Touji's back, not being able to do much else. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, a screeching alarm tore through the air. Both boys jumped, and tumbled over themselves as a pair of Britannian jet fighters sped by at supersonic speed. The pair of planes dipped their wings, pulled around, and flew off into the distance. Following them, six Knightmare carriers and a light bomber followed. The boys stared in terror as they scurried from the machines. Far into the distance, there came sounds of other machines marching in the same direction.

"Ken-Kensuke, what the hell are those?" Touji asked, frightened.

"Knightmare VTOLs," Kensuke replied. "They're transporting Sutherlands; I think that…there's going to be a big battle…and since the resistance is with the Britannians…"

Another monster attack

"Touji, let's get out of here!" he urged. "If there's another monster, the Britannians will probably drive it at us first!"

Touji lashed out, pushed the other boy back and whirled around.

"God _damn _it! If they do that kid had better stop it!" he roared. "If he doesn't, then—then—then I'll… "

He was still rambling as Kensuke half-dragged him back to the heart of the ghetto. Outside, legions of knightmares scrambled into position as the air buzzed with aircraft. Out on Ashino Lake, a gigantic, insect-like thing approached through the air. As it passed by, scores of submarines began the assault. Anti-air missiles accompanied by heavy artillery and air bombing combed over the surface of the Angel to no avail, and the monster continued on its course.

In the middle of the Britannian defense, a single Sutherland stood back with its Factosphere sensor wide open. Inside, Asuka surveyed the scene with disappointment, and made the signal to pull back the defense line by five miles. Still firing, the line of Knightmares rumbled away from the approaching Angel, followed by the rest of the Britannian forces.

"How long will it be until Nerv launches Unit 01?" Asuka asked.

"Unknown; there is no word from Nerv on that matter."

She shook her head.

"Must be playing our patience…and damn it, we _do_ need them," she muttered. "Make our line two miles from the city's edge. Set up a line where the Angel is predicted to land, and have the middle fall back into a pocket; try to tilt it away from the major parts of the settlement and keep that thing pinned down with fire."

—Not that it's going to be of much good—

Her Sutherland blended into the caravan of armored infantry and disappeared among the ordinary soldiers. With her public comm. channel open, Asuka listened to their fear, their unsettled minds relieving their distress through doubt. Understandably, they don't trust a fourteen-year-old girl to command them.

Her teeth ground up against one another as she scowled. Everywhere she goes, somebody has to doubt her. Somebody always has to force her to prove herself over and over again. A flip of her finger opened her private channel to the Britannian HQ under Princess Euphemia. Time to show the world, yet again, just how capable she is. As she relayed her plan to Euphemia, Asuka could almost feel the worry emanating from the Princess.

"So, you're going to personally lure this thing into the Tokyo Settlement and spring a surprise attack from underground? Isn't it dangerous? The last one was able to fire high-energy beams. What if it just decimates our line and moves on?"

From a corner, Zero's voice said, "Your Highness, if it does indeed possess ranged capabilities, then it would have already destroyed all our forces. Since Marshal Langley is still able to speak to us, we may presume that this Angel is restricted to close ranged attacks only."

That sarcastic bastard Zero, Asuka thought, concurs with her thoughts exactly, and it annoys her to no end.

Apparently convinced, Euphemia nodded through the video link.

"Be careful, Asuka," she said. "Don't be reckless."

Asuka smiled to her friend and benefactor. It's just like Euphy to be concerned about everything, like a mother. She disconnected and returned to her command channel.

"Alright, troops. All forces will line up once we reach the city. Your coordinates are being sent out. Once the Angel hits the line, take cover inside the Settlement and get out. Knightmare commanders, Alfred through David squads will use the Eastern Boulevard; Eowyn through Henry squads will take Central Avenue, Ingrid through Nero squads will take Western Boulevard, and Manchester through Wellington squads will use the Ghetto as cover. Retreat quickly and cover your route with cannon fire. Make sure you melt into the city. First Tank Group will go north along the coast; Fourth Tank Group will go south."

She tuned in to her naval commander.

"Admiral, _Over the Rainbow_ will send one last round of air raids, and all bombardment will cease once the Target reaches city limits. Understood?"

'_Let's go, Asuka!'_

"All forces, you will escape the area _immediately_. Do _not_ risk yourself in any act of heedless gallantry. My guards and I shall lure the Target into a trap. Get the hell out! _Is that understood?_"

She shut off the comm. before the replies came in and took off for her small entourage of trusted Langley House troops. Knowing Nerv's commander and her insight, she'll certainly read Asuka's intentions and act accordingly. Now, all she needs to worry about is Nerv's almost useless pilot.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Field Marshal Langley is moving towards the city, ma'am, and is requesting the Eva to be launched," Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba informed Misato, who snorted discreetly. Cornelia's hawk-like eyes still bore down on the crew, and, though she wants to, Misato doesn't care to risk calling the Field Marshal a "nosy little girl" in front of her friend.

"Where is the Third Child?" Misato asked.

"In Unit 01, ready to deploy, ma'am!"

"And where are the Field Marshal's troops?"

"Five miles from the city, in a straight line, light armored infantry and Knightmares under heavy cover in the center, heavy armor, gun emplacements and artillery to the wings, and ships to the far sides in the water but within firing range."

"A classic trap formation; distance from nearest Eva launch pad?"

"The rear is two miles from block D-22."

Almost directly behind the line, in fact; if she wants to curl her line of defense, she'd come up right inside the city, with an Evangelion ready to attack from below at any time. A beautifully simple strategy: lure the Angel in, kill it with the Eva. The only variable, however, is the Eva itself. More precisely, it is the Eva's pilot, an untrained boy with no experience in coordinated battles who, moreover, shows a dangerous inclination against violence.

"Launch the Eva with the Gatling cannon and high-explosive rounds to block D-22. Don't open the shutter until I tell you to."

She switched to the Eva's channel.

"Shinji, we're sending you up now. Stay put with the cannon until the Angel gets close enough. Until then, spread your A.T. Field and stay under cover. When the Angel comes within neutralization range, maximize the Field and attack the Core, just like you practiced, okay?"

"Okay," the disgruntled, un-soldier-like reply came.

"Launch, Eva!"

Again, the crackle of electricity; again, the jarring passage up the linear rails; once again, Shinji Ikari felt himself being carted off to a battle that he doesn't want to fight. The journey ended as abruptly as it had begun, as the Eva struck the end of the rails. The doors remained shut and, in the darkness, Shinji clutched his controls with sweaty hands. His pounding heart echoed the beeping sensors. With every second, the enemy approached.

XXXXXXXXXX

As usual, her shelling did little to no damage. High explosives, armor-piercing and even linear cannons and a prototype Hadron Collider Cannon, graciously lent to her by Second Prince Schnizel, did nothing to damage the Angel. As planned, her Knightmares have melted away into the streets, and the Angel is continuously fired upon from the back. Gradually, it is moving towards the Eva launch pad. Her Sutherland crouching on the roof of a nearby building with a few handpicked guards, Asuka waited with her customary bazooka in hand. The Angel nears. Closer…closer…if Misato Katsuragi has any of the rough street-smart attributed to her, she'd know when to make her move…

The shutter on D-22 crashed open, and the violet giant came crashing through the opening, a Gatling cannon ablaze. The air became filled with explosions as the volatile rounds ricocheted off of the Angel's A.T. Field. Cursing, Asuka's entourage abandoned their cover and rolled away, Landspinner tires billowing with smoke, to escape the destruction.

"Idiot!" she roared. "What kind of attack is that?" Clearly, the thing is taking all of zero damage. Desperately, her soldiers began firing on the Angel from behind, but that damn orange field blocked every shot. As she dreaded, the click of a dry chamber came from the massive weapon, though the Angel was unfazed. The Evangelion seemed to be trembling as it fumbled with its weapon, in full plain view of the enemy. Before Asuka could scream in anger, the Angel's forearms snaked out into a pair of luminescent whips of light that, in one smooth motion, diced the Gatling gun into pieces and forced the Eva to leap back and land unceremoniously on its ass. The Angel's second strike barely missed the Eva, which stumbled frantically away from the lashing whips. It crashed into a building, which immediately disintegrated as the Angel slashed it into pieces. The Eva tumbled out the other side, the severed end of its Umbilical Cable, its sole source of power, flapping uselessly behind the machine. Without it, the Evangelion was doomed to approximately five minutes of activation time, maximum, and only one at full power. Automatically, the connector of the Cable was jettisoned, and the Eva climbed shakily to its feet. Five minutes before it is rendered useless by the lack of power.

Shinji's heart raced; it would not be long before all power expired, and he left to be drawn and quartered by the Angel. If he was going to move, it has to be—

He shrieked in terror when the Angel's whip caught his Eva's ankle and tossed it effortlessly into the air. His head bashed repeatedly against the wall as he plummeted towards the area of the Shinjuku Ghetto. One moment, the sky filled his view screen, and the next, rubble, decay and people's despair, given physical form by the ruins that served as their home.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Incoming!" Kensuke screamed as the sky turned dark with the silhouette of Unit 01. He tried to pull Touji away, but the other boy stood rooted in fear as the shadow bore down over their heads. It was going to crush him, crush him beneath its metallic mass, and his sister…his sister would have nobody left to fend for her.

The robot was spinning as it fell. As Touji watched, its face turned towards him, and he gazed straight into its glowing eyes. The sharp, angular face seemed to scowl at him as he refused to move, challenging him to be a man, to survive and take care of his family.

Touji Suzahara bolted from where he stood with a roar, streaking away from the would-be impact site. Moments later, he felt himself lifted off of the ground by the tremendous hit, and began to drift over the ground as he was hurled by the shockwave. Boulders and debris cut into his back as he skidded to a halt painfully, blood clogging the back of his clothes. Shakily, he supported himself on his elbow and looked around. By his side, Kensuke looks as if he'd collapsed. Like Touji, he was badly torn up and bleeding, but looked to be alive. The robot's right hand had fallen right over them, although the fingers were spread just so that they missed the two by a few dozen centimeters. Tugging weakly, Touji dragged Kensuke to safety away from the Evangelion.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Damage report, damn it!" Misato yelled. "Is he even alive?"

"Damage minimal; Eva is still fully functional!" Aoba replied. "Internal battery, 2 minutes and 45 seconds of power remaining"

"Good! Shinji, can you hear me? Retreat! The Britannian army will cover you with heavy artillery," Misato ordered. "Get out of there!"

"Ma'am, wait!" Maya screamed. "There are civilians still down there! He's in the middle of Shinjuku!"

A side screen unfolded, showing a camera feed of two ragged, injured boys crawling away from the Eva.

"Fuck…" Misato swore. "They're just kids!"

She grabbed the mike.

"Hold your fire!" she snarled. "There are civilians within range!"

The emotionless reply came from a Britannian field commander.

"Britannian or Eleven?"

Misato wanted to reach through the phone and rip off his face.

"None of your concern; just hold your fire!"

She slammed the phone down.

"Smug little bastards," she hissed. "Always so damn _superior_…"

Abruptly, she connected to Unit 01 and ordered, "Shinji, get those two kids into the Entry Plug. Then get the hell out to the nearest Cable depot and hook up. Drop them off at an emergency entrance and get back into the fight. Understood?"

"Captain Katsuragi!" Cornelia barked. "The two boys that you are allowing into the Plug are not authorized to be exposed to Evangelion-related information. On top of that, they are not even Britannian citizens. You have no right to take them into the cockpit!"

Misato turned coldly upon the Witch of Britannia, one of the most feared military figures within the Britannian military, and an Imperial Princess highly in favor with the Emperor.

"Your Highness," she said. "I have no intention of allowing any unnecessary death out there; as Operational Commander of Nerv, _I_ authorize it. Nerv, remember, is not owned by Britannia."

As Cornelia's face clouded with shock, Misato turned back.

"1 minute, 30 seconds. Angel approaching Eva at moderate pace; ETA at forty-five seconds"

"Lock the Evangelion," she ordered. "Open the hatch!"

XXXXXXXXXX

"You two, get in!"

The voice startled Touji's mind into wakefulness, but it could not process the command. Get into the machine? What the hell does that mean?

"Hey! Move it!" Kensuke yelled at him. He dragged Touji's stunned frame towards a rope ladder that snaked out of a thick metal tube from the Eva's back. When they were both secure, the rope rolled them both in. A splash, and the tube sealed itself. The two terrified boys began to kick and panic just as the entire interior lit up, and a voice told them to fill their lungs with the stuff so that they can breathe. With no other choice, they let the liquid fill their lungs, and miraculously, found that though breathing was heavy and difficult, they could breathe the water. They looked in amazement at the quasi-panoramic, 270 degree HUD and view screen, sleek metal cockpit seat, and the kid sitting in the middle of all the technology, shivering like a newborn kitten.

"Shinji, retreat using the D-25 route behind the mountain; there, you will drop off your passengers, get a new cable and rifle, and return," Misato's voice said. "Go, now!"

Shinji did not move; instead, he hunched over and muttered to himself.

"Hey!" Touji yelled. "Move it! She said to run away!"

"Mustn't run away…mustn't run away…"

The Angel bore down on him, whips outstretched. Touji screamed and shook Shinji by the shoulder like a madman.

"GET OFF!" Shinji roared. He slapped Touji away, rolled the Eva over, and barely dodged a pair of arms that boiled several blocks of concrete.

0:58:39

The Eva launched itself off of the ground and slam-kicked the Angel in the Core. The Angel slid back a few dozen meters, and its arms lunged into Unit 01's chest armor. Through the bloody spray, Shinji howled. Carried by momentum, Unit 01 lurched right into a blast of energy that came from the Angel's Core.

0:36:20

With its chest armor melted together and its helmet warped, Unit 01 sank slowly down on the two arm blades, which, due to Eva's own weight, was cutting steadily into the torso.

0:30:00

"I MUSTN'T RUN AWAY!"

Unit 01's remaining eye sparked. Both arms shot up to the shoulder pylons, and a pair of MVS blades snapped into her hands. With a howl, Shinji plunged both blades down into the Core just as another energy blast began to charge. The air shrieked as the disrupted energy spun in a vortex. The Angel's arms slashed upwards impulsively and cut almost halfway into Unit 01's chest. Shinji screamed and slashed the MVS blades down and out of the Core. A split second later, the pent-up energy exploded outwards.

0:10:11

Stumbling, Unit 01 crumpled to the ground. For a second, it seems that the charred Angel was going to strike again.

0:00:00

The Angel's body, burnt by its own broken Core, broke apart at the midriff and, in a shower of charcoal, fell into pieces.

…

"Yo!" Touji said. "Ya okay?"

He was screaming like a madman just moments before, clutching his face and smashing the controls. Now, he lay crumpled, crying to himself.

"Stupid; of course he's not," Kensuke reprimanded Touji. "Just shut up; you're not doing any good."

The boy fell into a grumpy silence, although he betrayed an occasional look of regret and concern.

'_Dis shit must be hard on him'_

XXXXXXXXXX

"Yes, Shirley, I'm fine. I told you, don't worry about me!" Lelouch snapped. She's just a little too into him, at a time when he cannot afford the distraction.

"Lelouch, as a human male, you ought to show a little more interest," C.C. said slyly. "If you overthrow Britannia, you'll want an Empress."

"C.C.-SHUT-UP-THIS-IS-NOT-THE-TIME-DAMN-IT!" he hissed, covering his phone.

"Lulu, who were you just talking to?" Shirley demanded. "That sounded like a girl! Oh, goodness, Lulu! I just _knew_ it! You're with some girl, _aren't you_? They just fall all over you…"

"Sure is hard, being the hottest guy in the entire school," C.C. said in between bites of double-cheese Sicilian with sausages. She reached over for a sip of soda. "Any other boy would take full advantage of his situation…and exercise his evolutionary instincts. You, on the other hand…"

Lelouch angrily threw his mask into C.C.'s face. She yowled and rolled away from him.

"No, Shirley, I'm not with anyone like that. Stop worrying, please. Where are you, by the way? Your signal is breaking up…"

"I'm next to the Shinjuku Ghetto, where the bunker let out. Lulu, you won't believe what I'm seeing! It's that Nerv robot!"

'_The Evangelion is right out in the open! What a chance…'_

"Careful, Shirley. You don't know if it's safe to approach. Wait and I'll come pick you up."

On the other end, Shirley blushed in pleasure, but thought immediately that she had to say something or risk him sensing how pleased she is.

"It's dangerous, Lulu. Wait until the roads are cleared, at least! A lot of the city got wrecked here—"

"It's fine; I'll ride Rivalz's bike without the sidecar. I can get through any rubble heap in that. You can ride with me on the way back."

Her blush reddened even more as the thought of holding on to him for the entire trip came into her mind.

'_We'll be so close together…'_

Wait—"Lelouch Lamprouge, you'll kill yourself riding that bike, you idiot!" she yelled. "You can't do anything physical!"

"I can drive anything up to a Ganymede-Class Knightmare Frame, Shirley, so stop worrying like you're my wife."

He hung up with a sigh.

"Thank God she isn't…"

Before C.C. could say anything, he strode out, clapping his mask over his face and assuming the identity of Zero. Outside, his chief lieutenant Ohgi greeted him with a frown.

"Zero, sir…"

"What is it, Ohgi?"

"Your mask…it's got pizza sauce on it."

"Oh, thank you."

**End Stage V**


	6. Let Britannia Deal With It

**Code Evangelion**

**Stage VI: Let Britannia Deal with It**

Shirley Fenette was used to Lelouch being late to engagements with her, and she isn't too perturbed now. With the rest of the shelter, she gazed in awe at the purple giant before her. It looks badly damaged, and isn't moving at all. There was a smoking carcass on top of the robot that looks sort of like a bug of some sort—

"Whoa, man! That shit looks like a big, black _dick_!"

Shirley whimpered.

"Move it!" a voice above the crowd roared. Seven Sutherlands rolled into view, the leader with a crest on its left shoulder. The crowd, especially the Elevens, gave way to the soldiers. The Knightmares encircled the purple robot, and with six guarding the perimeter, the leader rolled up to the purple robot's knee. Though the Sutherland was big and held a large bazooka, machine and weapon together barely come up to half of the purple robot's thigh. Compared to it, the Britannian army's backbone looks like a mere toy. The Sutherland backed up and fired its Harken up at the robot's back. The Harkens caught in a notch of the robot's armor, and the Sutherland, finding the Harken's hold sufficient, pulled itself up. Its cockpit opened, and to Shirley's surprise, what looks like a girl her own age climbed out. The girl climbed up the robot's armor to a large block on its back, where, after a moment of probing, she punched something. A panel appeared, and, picking up what seems to be a phone embedded in the robot, barked some words into it. She put down the phone, slid back into her Knightmare with amazing ease, and dropped the machine away. The Harken disengaged itself and rolled back to the Sutherland's chest.

"It's a curious machine, isn't it?" a silky voice purred in Shirley's ear. She jumped with a squeak, and was caught in Lelouch's outstretched arm.

"Be a little more vigilant," he said. "If I was someone else, you might be dead already…or worse."

"Shush!" she scolded. He smiled and leaned in closer.

"Wanna go home now, or do you prefer to watch?"

'_If I say home, he might think I'm too eager to ride with him…if I stay, he might think I'm avoiding him…oh goodness, what do I say?'_ she thought nervously. _'Oh, Lulu is too dense; he won't think that much, right? Besides, this thing is really interesting…'_

"You're going to stay, aren't you?" Lelouch said before Shirley could get out a word. It was obnoxious of him, but she was a little grateful that she wouldn't have to say anything. Lelouch resumed his characteristic smirk as he watched two Sutherlands drag a humongous cable from a nearby nondescript building. Lelouch notes the three large holes in the robot's back.

'_Power supply, perhaps; it first launched with a cable attached, and ejected it after the cable was cut. The robot has stopped moving approximately three minutes after the cable was ejected. This means that the Evangelion must run on an external power supply with a very short-lived battery.'_ He wishes that Nerv and Britannia would tell him more, but deducing this much gives him an important ace in the hole. Sever the cable, and the Evangelion would be down in a few minutes. It was pretty active, during the last few minutes. It is possible that it can stay active longer if it idles. Lelouch estimates it at around five to six minutes. That is still plenty of time for that monster to wreck an entire army…or procure a spare cable from one of the many depots.

'_Depots for the cable only exist in the Settlement. The Evangelion would have a very limited range outside the city. Cables run out, and the battery won't last more than six minutes…and I thought a Knightmare had too little operational time on energy fillers. At least Sutherlands can carry spares.'_

The Evangelion is collapsed, yet the Sutherlands could not reach. Instead, it seems that they'd called for a Nerv truck to come along. It had a large—which means it towered over the Sutherlands the way Sutherlands tower over people—crane-like apparatus, onto which was loaded the handle of a cable. The truck wheeled up to the back of the Evangelion and pushed the cable into its back. Moments later, the Evangelion's eye glowed, and the Knightmares scurried to shoo away the crowd of spectators. Lelouch tugged Shirley away discreetly, having seen everything he wanted to.

"Aren't you going to say?" she asked. "You, uh, like this kind of thing, right?"

"It's interesting, but it's going to get moved now. I don't want you caught in the way, so we can watch it as we drive."

She blushed happily as he led her onto the bike, and pushed off the sidewalk. As she held on to him, Shirley felt a calm and happiness that she'd not felt in a long time.

"Hey, Lulu"

"Hmm?"

"I never brought you home, did I?"

Lelouch shook his head. She continued.

"Daddy got hurt because he was at the base of the mountain where the first Angel attacked, but he's alright now…we're going to throw a party for him when he comes out of the hospital. Milly's gonna plan it out; you know she's great at parties. So, uh, Lulu, you want to…come? It's going to be in two weeks. The whole student council is going to be there."

He was going to refuse—Black Knights business will probably occupy most of his time—but then paused. He deserves a break, doesn't he? Besides, Suzaku had recently joined the council, so he should be there, too. Shirley's parents are somewhat open-minded about Numbers. It's been a while since he'd seen Suzaku Kururugi, and the fact that he is the pilot of the Lancelot…Lelouch still smarted from his surprise when the Lancelot opened, and Suzaku Kururugi stepped out. He needs to know more. Besides, the Eleven boy in charge of the Evangelion is getting lumped into Ashford, too. Lelouch could easily nudge him onto the council and ensure that he gets a chance to get closer to this kid as well.

'_Not a bad idea, Shirley. Thanks,' _he thought. Aloud, he simply said, "Sure, I'd love to come." She gasped in surprise, blushed, and mumbled an okay. Lelouch turned away with a smirk.

'_Some people are born to be used.'_

The Evangelion is moving slowly into a nearby building. The face of the building had disappeared, revealing a set of rails onto which the Evangelion mounted itself. The building's face slid back into view, apparently from underground, and shut the Evangelion away.

'_The delivery system is built into the Settlement itself. Ingenious; they've been cooperating with the Empire for a long time now…yet even the highest nobles did not know!'_

He'll have to dig at the Britannians for details again. Lelouch shook his head, gunned the bike and, with Shirley's shriek in his ears, blasted off into the streets.

XXXXX

"Why didn't you obey my orders?"

Shinji sat on a bench in the Nerv locker room, not speaking. Angrily, Misato grabbed him by the shirtfront and pulled him up. He hung his head, refusing to look at her.

"Answer me, damn it! Why didn't you retreat? Do you know what would have happened if you hadn't killed the Angel?"

Shinji tore Misato's hands away and pushed her off.

"And what if I did obey orders and retreat? What would have happened then?" he screamed. "If I ran, the Angel would've come into the ghetto! People were still there, but the Britannians would've shelled it anyway! All those people would've died!"

He glared

"Don't you _care_? Or are you just Britannia's lapdog?"

Her eyes dilated, her face flushed, and she slapped him across the face.

"Alright," he said. "If you don't want me here, I'll leave. I'm not going to pilot."

He pushed past Misato, opened the door, and walked away.

"Are you going to just walk away?" she called out after him.

"If the Britannians have a problem, the Britannians can deal with it!"

XXXXX

"He walked out?" Ritsuko asked, sipping a mug of coffee.

"I'm afraid so. He got mad over me ordering him to retreat," Misato said. Ritsuko's eyebrow perked.

"He doesn't seem like the kind of person to seek heroism," she said. "Why, was he angry that you tried to take away his chance at glory?"

"No, silly," Misato said. "He's no glory hound; he was angry because taking him off the battlefield meant that Shinjuku would be exposed—well, that's what he told me."

"Not really; I doubt he thought of it," Ritsuko said coldly. "Most likely, it is an excuse for himself about why he didn't retreat. A kid like him cannot possibly comprehend the full range of damage that the Angel could have done. If anything, he probably just wanted an excuse to answer to himself."

"That's an awfully cold way to put it."

Ritsuko nodded.

"That's the nature of our line of work."

Misato leaned against the glass office door, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I hope he returns," she said. "It's a big burden, the survival of mankind. Besides, he's the only one who can do it, right?"

"Rei is incapacitated, and Unit 02 is yet to complete final inspections in Pendragon, so yes. Unit 01 is our only option should an Angel attack, say, tomorrow. But since the last one showed up after three weeks…well, in two weeks or so, Unit 02 should arrive. If we may believe the rumors about Langley's skill, then there should be no worry at all."

"Well, that's true, but it would still be nice to talk to Shinji again. We put him through too much to just dump him now. By the way, is Section 2 having any progress searching for him?"

Ritsuko's glasses glinted in the office light.

"They are saying that they have yet to track him down, but I doubt that's true. Unless Shinji is a counterintelligence expert, I find it hard to believe that Nerv's own security has yet to find him."

"Section 2 has its own agendas," Misato commented. "But I wonder…where would Shinji go?"

XXXXX

Several trains and a long walk brought Shinji Ikari to the Tokyo countryside. Here, rolling mountains dotted with terraced farms veiled themselves in faint mist, green with growing crops. He climbed up one such hill by means of a small dirt path. An hour or so later, he was at the top of the mountain, whose side was cut into a stepped rice field. He walked to the edge of the step he was on, and sat down there in the mist as wind whipped his hair and clothes about like a playful child. The mist parted, and he saw from a distance the glittering glass-and-steel glory of the Tokyo Settlement, seemingly unmarred by its recent conflicts. Perhaps they really don't need him at all. There was the Ayanami girl, wasn't there? And talk of taking in a Britannian Knight of the Round—the Second, he heard—as a pilot for a brand-new Evangelion that will be imported from the Britannian Homeland. He would doubtlessly be outclassed and obsolete. He has no real business here; he might as well go home.

Footsteps

Shinji froze

Footsteps were all but silent on the wet earth, and he did not hear a group of people appear behind him until they were almost upon him through the stalks of rice. He dashed sideways and peered over the stalks. There were five people, four men and a girl. Two were guards, judging by their uniforms, and one was an old Eleven. The other two, the girl and another older man who looked just like her, were Britannians in bright red uniforms with gold trim. Nobility, perhaps, but the girl is walking far ahead of the man, who looked to be her older brother. It was odd, because she was about Shinji's age, and had distinct Asian features in her face. The old Japanese man was explaining something directly to the girl, who was nodding as if she was conducting an inspection of sorts. Shinji tried not to make a sound until they passed, but one of the guards looked his way, stopped, and stared at his hiding spot. The girl cut off the old man, and walked forwards, exchanging brief words with the guards. She looked for a moment at him, as if she could see through the rice stalks, and then pulled a pistol out of her belt, pointed, and shot at him. Stalks snapped backwards as Shinji yelped and jumped out of the patch, the bullet having barely hit his foot.

"Well, what do we have here?" she said. Her reddish-bronze hair fluttered in the sun, glowing with its rays. Her pants were expertly creased and starched a brilliant white, finished off by a pair of riding boots and a red infantry coat. She was beautiful, he thought, but that gun in her hand is also very real. She looked him up and down, and her eyes widened in recognition. Flicking the safety back on—she had undone it in a flash, she stowed it back into a holster on her hip.

"Who are you, Eleven?" the nobleman asked brusquely. "This is my family's private property! Get lost!"

"Not family holdings, Henry," the girl said lazily. "_My_ personal holdings, and please, restrain yourself; this land is no longer yours. Finish the tour with Mr. Suzahara, please. I will escort our unexpected guest away."

The guards stepped forwards and nudged the man, now livid with rage, on, while the old Eleven nervously kept up his flow of talk. With the others gone, the girl turned on Shinji.

"Move it," she snapped. He began to walk nervously as she marched besides him.

"Um…are you…" he began. What was that name again? Misato had said…right. It was Langley. "Are you…Lady Langley?"

"Yes. And I know you are Shinji Ikari, pilot of—" she froze, her eyes darted around, and when she confirmed an absence of prying ears, she continued. "—Evangelion Unit 01 and that you are miles from your post at this moment. Why aren't you on alert? There could be an enemy attack _any second_!"

He turned his face.

"I quit," he said. "I don't want to do this anymore. All I do is hurt people…"

She half turned, stopped, and flushed much as her brother had.

'_The rumors were right, and Nerv was covering this up…what is that woman thinking? How has their security not yet caught him? Did they just let him go?'_

Right now, her Evangelion is still across the globe, in Nerv-Pendragon. Nerv's other Evangelion was in stasis after a severe accident, and the other pilot was incapacitated. She can't afford to let this boy just leave.

"So you ran away. Don't you know that more people will be hurt because you did not protect them?" she glowered.

"No-yes-they told me that! But…I still can't!" he yelled, stopping in his tracks. "They don't need me anyway, do they? They've got Ayanami, and…and you…and you all are so much better than me…you don't need me!"

"Ayanami is barely out of the hospital, and my Eva is in the Homeland, you idiot. You're the only one that can protect this place right now!" she scolded. Facing him, she glowered. "What are you talking about, you aren't needed? Didn't you kill _two_ Angels already? What you did just a few days ago, charging at the Angel and saving those two kids…that was brave. Do you really want to stop now?"

He continued to look away, as if he did not want to meet her gaze. She saw the fear, the timidity, but also a spark of resistance. He, she concluded, was a land mine that won't ignite until stepped on.

"I'll take you back to the Settlement, where your deportation may be arranged," she said coldly. "It's alright; run away and let other people make sacrifices for you." They had reached the end of the dirt path and have come onto a highway, where a nondescript car laid in waiting. Langley shoved Shinji inside, took the front seat, and the driver sped off, looking curiously at Shinji in the rear view mirror. Langley had her back to him, sitting regally at ease, her posture straight and graceful. She had set her hair into a tight bun with a long ponytail cascading off of it. That stream of hair now winked playfully at Shinji, seeming to invite him to stroke its shiny length. It, however, was not the only thing caught in the sun. Langley had seen it too, crying out in surprise and calling for the driver to watch out, as what looked like a giant pyramid of crystal hurtled past them with three missiles on its tail. The whole group passed within meters of the car, which was lifted off the ground and sent skidding over the hard gravel path. Airbags instantly engulfed Shinji's vision as he felt his world spin. Moments later, three thundering explosions shook the vehicle again, setting it rocking on its back like a helpless, upturned beetle. The airbags deflated, and Shinji dangled above the car roof from his seat belt—he was thankful the driver had reminded them to put it on. Up in front, the driver's face was matted with blood, and Langley wasn't moving. Overhead, the sky glows a blue hue as the crystal spun around, opened its pyramidal body and fired a fast stream of positrons, clearing the sky of an entire wave of various projectiles and aircraft. The flames now raining down on the ground splattered the car's bottom, and to Shinji's horror, he could smell gasoline trickling inside it. Ahead, Langley was just now beginning to groan, and the driver seemed somewhat conscious, but neither was moving.

"Crap, crap," he whispered, panic rising fast. Fumbling fingers brought him crashing down, the seat belt whizzing back to its holder. Painfully, he crawled out the door. The window was a shattered mess of fragmented glass held together by the inner layers that bullet proofed it, and Shinji had to kick the door hard to open it. Once outside, he saw that the car was already burning over where the front seats were. He felt the urge to flee as fighter jets roared out their anger over his head, but a small twinkle of sunlight on a piece of scrap metal caught his eye, reminding him of Langley's radiant hair. With a supreme force of will, he turned around in his flight, dashed back to the car, and found the front door locked. Apparently, the front airbags have not deployed fast enough, or were damaged by shrapnel, because she wasn't moving. Unwilling to give up, Shinji ducked back into the interior, which was feeling hot from the fires burning on the roof, and, reaching gingerly, unlocked the door. The heat was intense, and the metal hot. Shinji cried out as he tried to grab the door handle from the outside. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his hands around the burning metal and wrenched it open. Inside, she was regaining her awareness, and he caught her as she took off the seat belt. Unceremoniously, he dumped her to the ground, and dragged the driver out. The crystal had moved away far enough that there was some peace in the air, and Shinji took full stock of his situation. The driver, the same man who had approached him before, had an ugly cut on his head, which was slightly swollen, but he had already awoken and was wiping the blood off his face. The girl took a much worse head injury and was still moaning. Behind them, the fires crackled maliciously. Without a word, the driver picked up the girl and began to run. When they were sufficiently far away, he laid his mistress down gently onto a bed of leaves, and took out a phone. Shinji sat by, wordless, while the man arranged for a pickup and a medical team. He was around his late twenties, good looking, with a high cheekbone and strong nose, something of a rarity in Japan. His hair was longer than usual, and some of it clumped together at the middle, giving the impression that he may be used to braiding it into a ponytail.

"I am indebted to you," he said after a while. "And I suppose my mistress, too. Thank you."

"Sure," Shinji replied with total apathy, still gazing at Langley's face.

"She is still beautiful, no?" the man said softly, a little more at ease with his own race. "Even with the bruise." He put her into a more comfortable position and buttoned up her coat, then laying his own over her and tucking it in, much as a parent would a young child.

He looked at Shinji and smiled wanly.

"It's pleasant work to guard beauty, young man. You'll realize that soon, perhaps already. I'm Ryuji Kaji, by the way, personal manservant to her ladyship."

He extended a hand.

"Shinji Ikari; we've met, haven't we, Mr. Kaji?" Shinji said, shaking his hand. The grip was strong and dry.

"Yes, we have," Kaji said. "'Kaji' is fine when we are without formal company. May I call you Shinji?"

"Yea…sure," Shinji said. He looked worriedly at Langley. "Is she…alright?"

"Concussion, perhaps, but the front panel was soft and cushioned, and the airbag didn't fail altogether. She'll be fine if—"

He looked into the sky, where the giant crystal still roamed the skies, vaporizing everything with its particle beams. Now, it folded into the shape of a flower with countless sharp petals, and in a blinding flash, covered the sky in a barrage of beams out of every one of its petals. The little that remained of the air force disintegrated into balls of oily flames as they were massacred by the thousands of beams that played over the city, itself a patchwork of crisscrossing valleys dug by the beams.

"I am but a lowly servant, a piece of Lady Langley's furniture," Kaji commented drily. "I am powerless and cannot do anything to stop this carnage. But you, Shinji Ikari, you have a special gift. You can make a difference. You can do what no one else can."

Two strange looking aircrafts skidded to a halt over them, having flown low on their square VTOL engines. Each was marked with the palm leaf logo of Nerv, and one of them had 'medical' printed along its side. Field medics rushed out and carried Langley into the VTOL. As Kaji began to follow his mistress, he turned back.

"Young man, don't you have something to do right now?"

**End Stage VI**


	7. A Reason to Fight

Code Evangelion

**Stage VII: A Reason to Fight**

"Britannian air force in this area has been wiped out. 35% of the Settlement is seriously damaged; purging is initiation around the entire city."

Misato watched helplessly as the large crystal, now identified as the Fifth Angel, screamed down the length of a bridge and razed it to the ground. The worst of the destruction seemed over, as the Angel was now looking around, as if trying to find something.

"Target is right over the GeoFront!"

The Angel spun, opened up into a large claw-like shape, and its center whirled with light.

"High energy readings at the center of the target; particle acceleration detected around the edges!"

A beam blasted into the ground, slicing away layer after layer of the Settlement and striking straight into the GeoFront's armor.

"Direct hit, Armor layer 1 is heavily damaged!"

The beam wasn't stopping. It kept drilling on, making a loud screech that shook even the interior of the command center.

"The beam has been identified as a positron stream directed at the top of the GeoFront armor. The Magi estimates one hundred and twenty minutes before all armor layers are destroyed."

Hyuga sank back in his chair.

"It's attacking everything in a given radius with that beam, ma'am," he said. "We can't get anything in range without it being blasted."

"What about Marshal Langley?" Cornelia demanded.

"Report just in; Marshal Langley was injured in the attack. Her servant called in an ambulance VTOL," Aoba reported. "The car she was in was caught in an airstrike. The medical team says that she is stable but unconscious."

"That's it; I'm assuming direct control of all Britannian forces within the Hakone Region!" Cornelia cried. "Where's the regional commander? Get me a full list of able men and machines!"

Misato glanced over at Aoba, who continued.

"The Third Child was also reported to have been involved. He is now in a separate VTOL fighter and is being carried to HQ. The servant claims that Shinji pulled the Marshal and the servant himself out of the car while it was burning."

"That's great," Misato said. "Prepare Unit 01 for deployment. The moment he gets here, get him changed and readied. We have two hours to destroy this thing or Nerv is gone."

She glanced at Cornelia.

"Your Highness, I will need your cooperation on this case."

The two women sized each other up, and Cornelia nodded.

"Make your preparations," she said. "Technician, how strong is that thing's defense? Can a Hadron Cannon shot from the _Avalon_ damage it?" The aerial warship _Avalon_, under the command of H.I.H. Second Prince Schnizel was currently deployed in the battle, sans his Highness himself, who was in Pendragon. Earl Lloyd Asplund of the Camelot Research Group currently flies the ship. In addition to being flight-capable, the _Avalon_ also had a high output Hadron Cannon capable of astounding damage from its accelerated beams. Also, the _Avalon_'s Blaze Luminous shields could be a great boon in fighting at long distances, as it blocked almost all conventional and unconventional weaponry, including other Hadron Cannons.

"Not possible," Aoba said. "The Angel's A.T. Field reading is at least five times more powerful than the Third Angel's, and from what we've seen, the beam can slice the _Avalon_'s shield like a hot knife through butter. A Hadron Cannon could potentially disrupt the crystalline structure, though, if the A.T. Field was deactivated. Even then you'll run the risk of getting hit by the beam."

"How about deploying the Gawain and the Lancelot in conjunction with the cannon?" Misato asked, and then turned to the masked man standing in the rear. "Zero, your forces possess a Seventh Generation knightmare frame capable of using energy weapons as well, right?"

"The Guren can only deploy its Radiant Wave Surge in close range," Lelouch said.

"But if you were to bring it close enough while the target is distracted by…say…an Evangelion, two Knightmares and a battleship, then the Guren can destroy the Core directly," Misato finished. The bright core was clearly visible through the crystal.

"Third Child has arrived," Hyuga said. "Estimated ninety-eight minutes until all armor layers are penetrated."

"It's as good as we can get," Misato said. "Ready Unit 01 for subsurface deployment."

Cornelia turned to a comm. station and ordered the launch of the Britannian knightmares, and Lelouch stepped back to communicate with Kallen discreetly.

"Kallen," he said. "You heard everything, right?"

"Sir, they want the Guren to directly assault that thing right next to its beam?"

"A perfect way to dispose of a powerful threat," he concluded. "You will be deployed below the surface on a Nerv launch chute. The Evangelion will attack, and when it neutralizes the enemy's defenses, the Guren will immediately break out and attack the target at close range, after the combined shots from the Britannians break open the shell."

"So, they get to sit back and shoot?" Kallen asked with disbelief.

"Yes. I'm afraid that it's all that Princess Cornelia is willing to do. Unless you wish to withdraw from the mission, you and the Evangelion pilot will be the ones rushing into the fray."

"Understood…"

"Kallen"

"Yes?"

"Be careful."

XXXXX

The Evangelion spread its AT Field to full power as it approached the Angel from below, carrying the lumpy head of a space shuttle with a handle hastily welded on. It was a reentry-capable piece of metal, electromagnetically coated to resist heat. It will stand approximately sixteen seconds of a beam from this Angel, assuming it did not raise its output. Underneath the shield, the Guren hung on by its Harkens.

'_Why am I still piloting…? Why did I come back? Why did I even save that girl?'_

_Her hair played before his eyes, pretty and magnetic. His whole attention focused upon its length, her round shoulders, held back in a prim position, and the slender neck that sometimes showed its clear skin when the wind carried the golden red strands away._

Unit 01 shot out under the Angel, a block away from its beam, and immediately jumped onto a leg, hooked an arm over it, and carried itself onto the surface. The Angel retaliated wildly, unable to aim at a target moving at high speed on top of its body.

"Unit 01's AT Field is neutralizing the phase space!" Maya reported. "Ten seconds until complete shutdown."

"Gawain, Hadron cannon ready to fire," the pilot said.

"Lancelot, VARIS rifle ready to fire," Suzaku reported.

"Guren, Radiant Wave Surge fully charged," Kallen yelled.

"_Avalon_, at your service," Earl Asplund's silky voice intoned.

"Five seconds…four…there are energy readings around the target's body!"

The timer clicked to zero.

"FIRE AWAY!"

Gawain, Lancelot and the _Avalon_ opened up with all of their energy weapons, the dark red beams smashing apart the Angel's shell. A shriek filled the air, and the energy drill disappeared. The Angel shot away into the sky, throwing Unit 01 into the streets as it did so.

"Direct hit—the Angel is still active!"

_Her skin was soft when he touched her, Shinji remembered. Lying there on the mound of leaves with the trees all around her, she cast a strikingly beautiful shape, marred only by the ugly bruise. The same went for Rei Ayanami…she was just as beautiful when she was rolled in on a wheeled bed. Damaged beauty…beauty that he was trying to protect…like the man Kaji said._

Beauty, not only of a woman, but of the city, the ghettos, life; he fought the first Angel so Ayanami wouldn't have to, the second, so that Suzahara, Aida and the other Japanese trapped in Shinjuku would survive, and this one so that Langley would continue to be beautiful. He fought because he cared about these things, because he has the power to protect them, and because for the first time in his life, he is useful to somebody.

The Angels were the ugliness that pervaded on his world, tried to destroy it, snatch it away. They were the enemy. Even if he was just another lowly, uneducated Eleven, he could fight these Angels whereas all the valor, glory and power of Britannia were useless.

The side of the Angel was deeply cratered. The Core could be seen, and as Shinji reached for it, he was blasted back by an energy beam. It carved a section off of the shield and sent Unit 01 tumbling through the air, crashing through three layers of the Settlement and into a deep hole. Already, crystal was flowing over the wound. It would regenerate itself soon, and then there would be no hope…

"Guren," he said huskily. "Let go."

He caught the knightmare in Unit 01's hand, and, ejecting his broken cable, threw away the ruined shield as well.

"Evangelion Unit 01, moving out!"

Unit 01 jumped out of the hole, raced across the Settlement's empty streets, shattering countless windows as it picked up speed. In the Eva's hand, Kallen hung on for dear life.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" she screamed.

"I'm going to get you into the hole!" he yelled back. "So make it work!"

The AT Field blossomed out behind the Eva in a rose-shaped cloud, propelling the Eva hundreds of meters into the air in one bounce. Pulling back the machine's hand, Shinji bellowed out his pent-up anger and pitched the Guren at the Angel. The knightmare frame spun wildly, with Kallen screaming in terror as the crater on the Angel filled her screen.

"I'M COUNTING ON YOU, SO PLEASE, DESTROY THAT THING!" Shinji howled.

The Core, the target she'd been told to aim for…it was right there. Right in front of her…that means she can't die in a crash. Mother was waiting…

The Guren's Harkens slammed into the crater, correcting the knightmare's flight path. Kallen squeezed her eyes and slammed the special arm into the Core, shattering the last layers of pseudo-crystal that protected it, and discharging the claw's full load into the pulsing orb. Red waves engulfed her view as the crystal lattice transmitted the energy beautifully, the structure breaking down from the Core, which bulged with the heat pumped into it, cracked and burst into steam. A flash and the entire Angel burst into flames, its body melting in the heat wave. Guren sank right through the disrupted crystal, falling from the sky as the Angel exploded piece by piece, a line of small explosions dotting the sky for many miles, the individual chunks breaking off and igniting. Behind her, the Eva appeared, cupping her hands and catching the falling knightmare, the tumble cushioned by a jet of flames that shot out of the Eva's pylons, stabilizing them and allowing the machines to land without destroying the city. As the Angel's burning remains burrowed through the city's top layer, it slowed, melted into liquid, and with an unassuming hiss, all became quiet.

…

"We did it," Shinji whispered. "We killed it."

"Don't do something stupid like that again," Kallen admonished. "You almost scared me to death."

"Sorry."

"Shinji Ikari, right?"

"Yea"

"I'm Kallen. Kallen…Kozuki. Nice meeting you, Shinji."

"Sure…Kallen"

The Evangelion's battery died off, leaving Shinji cut off inside the Plug. He felt his tension drain away, and let a stream of bubbles escape his lungs into the LCL.

'_I did it.'_

XXXXX

"Well, that was quite spectacular," Lloyd said in his sing-song voice. "He _threw_ the knightmare! How creative of him!"

"Lloyd, please," Cecile said.

"Wow," Suzaku said, gaping. "That was…awesome."

"See, Cecile?" Lloyd seized upon the opportunity. "Even Suzaku sees the grandeur of that move, and you can't call him insensible—he is _most_ sensible, in fact—so you are not justified in scolding me, dear."

"Lloyd, did you see that?" Suzaku continued without taking note of Lloyd's antics. "The Angel just…blew apart."

"Of course it did, you foolish boy!" Lloyd cried. "The energy wave disrupted the Angel's crystalline microstructure! A shame, I say. I could have done so much with that crystal. Say, Cecile, you wouldn't know how to get the army to find me a few pieces? I'd like to study it…for science, of course."

All this time, the pilot of the Gawain had said nothing. His machine was already on the ground again. Suzaku marveled at the flight-enabled knightmare. With the Float System enabling flight free of a carrier and the Blaze Luminous shield system, the Gawain was a floating armored turret. Apparently, it was being fielded by the Knight of One himself.

Settling down, the Gawain turned to face the Lancelot.

"I believe, Major Kururugi, that our assistance is required in the Settlement," a mellow, silky voice said in his ear. "Come, let us go."

The Gawain lifted off, and, soundlessly, drifted into the night, as if it really had no weight at all. The Lancelot followed it into the burning city, trying to keep up on its Landspinners.

"They are curious things, these Angels, aren't they?" the pilot of the Gawain said. "With their barriers, they are all but gods, without them, they are so fragile that they can be destroyed with one blow."

"Well, I guess that means we know their weakness, my Lord…" Suzaku said uncertainly. The man laughed.

"This is not a problem of knowing the enemy's weakness, Mr. Kururugi. Think, sir. If such powerful beings are so easily reduced, sans a single element of their defense, then how fragile is a human life, a human heart?"

"But we must make do, sir," Suzaku said. "After all, this is all we've got, all we'll ever have."

"Quite correct," the Knight of One said. "We are merely human beings, and cannot ask for more than we already have."

With that, he shut off the comm. and continued his work silently. Suzaku followed the odd man with some apprehension. He always found philosophizing characters to be over their heads and self-centered, just like…

He mustn't think about it, he told himself. This isn't the right time. There were people to be rescued, and cleanup to be done. Still, thoughts of the elder Kururugi lingered in his mind. He had seen his father organize futile resistance, refuse to surrender even though it would save lives, act on empty principles at the cost of people's lives. He had to stop his father, Suzaku told himself. It was for everyone's good.

Was that really true? That, he did not know, and probably will never know; the truth had been long buried with the body of Prime Minister Kururugi.

Heavy-hearted, Suzaku followed his superior and buried himself in his work, the only thing that really matters now.

XXXXX

"Mistress"

Kaji bowed, and entered the hospital room with a tray of tea and sweets. In the bed, Asuka sat quietly, a book in hand. A bandage was wrapped, bandana-like, on top of her head.

"Thank you, leave the tray on the table, please," she said.

"As you wish"

Mechanically, she picked up the cup and sipped the tea. It was a weak brew, dilute and watery.

"Kaji, what kind of tea is this? It's almost tasteless," she frowned.

"Milady, you are too young to drink a strong tea," he admonished.

"I'm not a child, Kaji. Don't treat me as one," she scowled. "You know I hate it when you do that." She out the tea down and nibbled on a small muffin.

"Whatever you say will not change the facts," he countered. "You have the body of a child, no matter how great your accomplishments."

Her look darkened even more, and she returned to her snack sullenly. He pulled up a chair and sat by her side.

"Please, cheer up. There's nothing wrong with being young."

"What happened after I was knocked out?" she asked.

"The boy escaped, but returned and freed us from the car just in time. I carried you up the mountain, where we called for a Nerv VTOL that carried you to their hospital. The boy took a separate route and returned to Nerv. The Angel was destroyed in a coordinated attack by Nerv, the Black Knights and the Camelot Research Group. Here is the full report."

"The irregulars?" she asked in surprise as she perused the document. "The Lancelot…and _the Gawain_—Lord Tabris himself came here?"

"The Knight of One was the test pilot for the Gawain, milady. He generously offered to participate in the battle, which served as a test for the Gawain's combat capabilities."

"Doesn't look like he did much," she commented, flipping through the pages. "He just shot the Hadron Cannon and then went to clean up. This is very inconvenient; I don't need another high-ranking aristocrat giving me orders."

"Lord Tabris has been nothing but a gentleman towards you, milady. I'm sure he harbors no intentions of ordering you around."

"He doesn't have to," she said sullenly. "He's the Knight of One, the personal champion of the Emperor. He'll get in the way just by being here…as if Cornelia and Prince Schnizel aren't enough already!"

XXXXX

Clovis sure did do well in the PR department. His memorial museum was already open, so soon after his death. Princess Euphemia walked hesitantly through the main gallery of the museum, where the finalists of the art expressions week contest were displayed. It was her duty to choose the painting that will receive a position of honor, and she could not. Not that the paintings weren't good; they were excellent, but none of them jumped out at her in any way. Besides her, the museum's curator—a handler, really, a fat, greasy-looking bald man—walked with purpose in his footsteps. She paused at a rather small painting of a simple, thatched house at the base of a mountain and next to a small river. It was the best she had seen the whole day long, she thought. The painting was as serene as it was insignificant-looking. The artwork, however, was executed with expert precision. The straw roof of the house shone under an invitingly warm sun, shadows played over the intricate leaves of nearby trees, and the water seemed to sing out to her, calling her to wash away her worries in its pure waters. It was beautiful to her eyes.

"I like this one," she said.

"Our investigations have revealed that the painter is one-quarter Eleven," the handler said coldly, sealing the painting's fate. Euphemia's temper immediately flared.

"Well, if that's the case, then perhaps it should never have been displayed at all," she replied hotly.

"We must keep up appearances," the man said with absolute apathy. Disgusted, she began to turn away, but he stepped up.

"Your Highness, please allow me to show you this fine work by the son of Count Nikolai," he said, pointing to a large painting in the middle of the gallery. It was perfectly placed, with a perfect pedigree behind it, perhaps with a few stacks of perfect money thrown in behind the scene, as well. It was ugly, she thought, violent, arrogant and ugly. The painting was a large depiction of Emperor Charles zi Britannia, pumping his fist into the air in a gesture of victory, with a backdrop of the Britannian flag and a blank wall behind it. Simple, almost crudely colored compared to the intricate, warm work of the quarter-Eleven, and lacking in depth. Yet, because he's Count Nikolai's son, he'll win, no matter what. It made her ashamed to be a noblewoman.

The press was waiting outside. Every question that was considered too complicated for her to answer was either fended off by the curator or by Andreas Dalton, a subordinate of Cornelia who accompanied her. She was intensely uncomfortable, feeling like a powerless figurehead being pulled around from one side to another by the two men flanking her. The time came for her to make her choice by laying a small white flower on the painting she favored. The curator blocked her path to the small painting by the quarter-Eleven, while Dalton guided her to the centerpiece, the work of the son of Count Nikolai. Suddenly, she was angry at her own country, at the culture that it led, and at the people who willingly propagated inequality through power. Even Dalton, whom she knew to care little for Britannia's racist policies, could do little but go along and occasionally make a few words of complaint. Under the cameras, however, she had a way of making a bigger difference. All the reporters were waiting impatiently for her to choose the obvious winner, their eyes fixed on the young nobleman's work. With a turn of her heel, Euphemia strode up to the curator and, on national TV, pushed the stunned man aside. With deft strides, she glided over to the small painting, sequestered in a corner, and laid the white flower on it. All the cameras flashed, the reporters leaping up like hungry wolves converging upon a fresh kill, eager to get at the story first. She glared at the visibly sweating curator, daring him to say something. Behind her, Dalton smirked, his scar quivering as he did. He walked up to the curator, glanced to make sure that the Princess had the full attention of the press, leaned in and patted the man's shoulder.

"Well done, my good fellow. I'm sure you and the good Count will be right up there for advancement once the whole nation sees her Imperial Highness shove you aside like a little ragdoll."

**End Stage VII**


	8. Lamprouge

Code Evangelion

**Stage VIII: Lamprouge**

Champagne bottles were popped, and people cheered as Mr. Fenette entered the house. Everyone cheered the man in crutches, and Shirley hugged her father gingerly. He ruffled her hair and kissed her on the forehead, then hobbled in to greet his friends, family and colleagues. It was a touching scene, a welcome break for Lelouch from all the politics and fighting. As hard as it is for him to admit, he genuinely enjoyed Shirley's company. She could be very bubbly and happy, pleasant company to be with, never begrudging much and always happy to please. Most of the faces in the crowd were those of Shirley's extensive network of friends, relatives, and her parents' coworkers, uninteresting to Lelouch. He watched as Suzaku hung uncomfortably in the back, from where he was fished out by Shirley to introduce to her parents. They showed surprising tolerance for him. Lelouch was not surprised that she chose not to mention him. Her feelings for him probably got in the way of her hospitality, which was fine by him. It was an important day for her, after all. She's always been a daddy's girl. The Evangelion pilot wasn't here, as he hadn't been admitted to the school yet, unfortunately. On his end, Suzaku was as serious and respectable as ever and there seemed to be nothing to be gained from coming here, except perhaps some relaxation.

Someone lightly tapped him on the back, and he turned to see who it was. It was a girl, with a wide hat and sunglasses covering her face, but she had a head of curiously dressed pink hair. Hair that was very, very familiar to him. She smiled and lifted her sunglasses. Lelouch recoiled in shock and horror.

"Euphy-"

She clapped a hand to his mouth and dragged him into an empty room, where she threw off the cap and fell into his arms.

"Lelouch, you really are alive!" she cried. "We all thought you were dead!"

"Euphy, what are you doing here?" he demanded in a whisper. "What if you're seen?"

"It's okay," she whispered. "And I came to see you…Lelouch, aren't you happy to see me?"

He was not; his safety had obviously been breached. Did she know that he is Zero? She could be acting. Then again, Euphy was always the kindhearted girl, wearing her heart on her sleeve and always naïve and innocent. She couldn't act, even if she wanted to. He had some affection for her, and didn't want to push her away.

"How did you find me, Euphy?" he asked, returning the hug, mainly to hide her face from curious onlookers.

"Asuka—um, Lady Langley told me about a Lelouch Lamprouge…here at Ashford. Lelouch isn't really a commoner's name, you know. And Ashford; they were the family that you were dropped off with. I just knew, Lelouch. It had to be you."

_The Knight of Two knows me? How did that happen? Did she find out who Zero is?_

Euphy let go of him, though she still leaned into his chest.

"You remember Count Nikolai, don't you?" she asked.

"That buffoon? I played chess with him once," he answered. Nikolai…the name was familiar; he'd heard it recently…oh, right, Euphy chose a part Eleven commoner over Nikolai's son for the art expressions week contest. Langley, a quarter-Eleven herself, would definitely have enjoyed the news, and then looked up the Count out of curiosity. As well networked as she was, she would also have heard the news of the Count's defeat by a student at chess, his favorite pastime. It doesn't take much to find him, he thought. His gambling habits left a clear trail for anyone to follow. Euphy, though, was the only one so far to realize that he was Lelouch vi Britannia, former Eleventh Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire, exiled to Area Eleven following the bloody assassination of his mother, the former Imperial Consort, Empress Marianne, or the fact that the girl in his arms is his half sister. Outside, several girls were peeking in, hands over their mouths in mock outrage. One of them was running off, presumably to get Shirley, as it is well known that she had a massive crush on Lelouch.

'_Crap'_

They will certainly demand to see the girl they thought was Lelouch's girlfriend, and when they do, everybody will instantly make the wrong assessment. He could not admit that she was his sister—doing so puts him at even greater risk. Now, however, he'll be known as Princess Euphemia's boyfriend…as if it wasn't hard enough for him to sneak away on Black Knights business already!

"Euphy, let's get out of here!" he hissed, forcing her hat and sunglasses over her head again and rushing her through the gaggle of people beginning to form at the door, unceremoniously shoving them aside and pushing Euphy through. Thankfully, the crowd wasn't thick enough that they were trapped, but a look over his shoulder told Lelouch that Shirley had seen him, and was running off in the opposite direction. Now he's ruined her day…it was funny how he can plan battles and send men to their deaths far more easily than he could make a girl unhappy.

"Where's your security?" he demanded. "Get out of here! You'll be recognized!"

"Um…I gave them the slip," she said sheepishly.

Lelouch cursed his luck. Of course, his most airheaded and thoughtless sister would find him at exactly the wrong time.

"Then how did you get here?"

"I was driven, and then I got out and snuck off," she said, with almost a hint of pride.

Well then, the security men couldn't be too far off. There was no way Euphy could slip past professional Imperial guards. As they were walking, two suited men were already approaching.

"Are those your people?" he growled.

"Yea…I recognize them," she said. He pushed her off.

"You can see me later," he promised. "Just don't show up when there are people around."

She began to protest, but the guards have already escorted her away, taking no notice of him. He waved good-naturedly and turned to go. Shirley waited for him at the door, looking despondent. He felt guilty, almost ashamed that he'd hurt her so. Even he must be human sometimes…

"Lelouch, where did you go?" she asked.

"I went to see a friend off," he answered.

"That's all? She was just a friend?"

He could say many things, none of which would really help, so instead he grabbed her and kissed her.

"Of course," he murmured. "It's not like I have room for another woman in my life, you know." It was a farce, one that may or may not have been detected by Shirley. Most likely not, as her eyes were wide open in shocked disbelief. To drive the point home, he held her for a brief moment and let go, smiling.

"I hope I didn't ruin your day?" he asked, as much for his own conscience as for anything else.

"Um, no, not at all…"she was at a loss for words, too distracted by him to think about Euphy. Good; everyone else will forget it soon, as he was a popular guy whom many girls adored. He blew a mental sigh of relief, followed by another mental groan. Now Shirley will be more intent on him than ever, expecting him to fulfill the role of a boyfriend as well. Out of the fire and into the frying pan, he supposed, although this was the better alternative. Putting his arm 'round her waist, he ushered her back in full view of the whole party, trying to look respectable for the sake of Mr. Fenette, who was looking at him with disapproval. Regular life, it seemed, is much harder than running a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, Euphemia had yet again left the safety of her car and walked off to the school, hoping to perhaps see Nunnally there, too, though she didn't count on the blind, disabled girl to be anywhere but home. Another person was walking out of the school into the courtyard, looking up dreamily at the sky. Euphemia quickly put on her sunglasses, though it was night, making her unable to see anything, and groped through the darkness to the boy's side, driven by curiosity. Not surprisingly, she tripped, squealing as she tumbled to the ground. The boy started and caught her instantly, displaying amazing reflexes.

"Are you alright?" he cried.

"Ah, yes, I'm fine," a chagrined Euphemia said. "Thank you, mister…"

"Kururugi, miss. Suzaku Kururugi."

Euphemia started, surprised. A close examination told her that he really was Suzaku Kururugi, son of the former Japanese Prime Minister. He was good looking, with a head of tousled brown hair and a pleasantly honest face that made her like him instantly. She patted down her dress and stood up. He looked strangely at her sunglasses.

"Um, miss, it's almost midnight."

She blushed and took them off, careful to hide her face in the shadows cast by the yard's lights. He looked confused in the highest degree, which was only natural considering the oddness of the encounter. Her guards would certainly be approaching right that moment, and would instantly give away her identity. But he was the pilot of the Lancelot, who fought under her command, at least in name. She wanted to get to know him better.

"Call me Euphy," she said. "May I call you Suzaku?"

"Sure," he said, looking more confused. She gave him a reassuring smile and laid her hand on his arm.

"Would you like to give me a little tour around this school?"

XXXXX

"…school?"

Shinji was stunned, finally getting his wish after such a long time of staring at the distant Ashford Academy, where he was now suddenly enrolled. He did not quite know what to say, so Misato simply continued with giving information.

"Rei Ayanami has already been enrolled. To avoid attracting attention, you will refer to her as Rei Aldington while at school, which is her given name in public. She will be posing as a Britannian student from the Britannian Homeland, while you…there is not much to be done for you, unless you wish a complete face-lift. Otherwise, a private tutor will get you up to par in terms of schoolwork, and you will be lodged with a certain Lelouch Lamprouge through the school's student housing system. He's the only one who would accept Elevens, and we want you to make friends for your own good."

She shut the folder she was reading from and handed it to Shinji.

"I know you haven't gone to school, but I believe that you're more than capable. Make us proud," she said, patting him on the shoulder. He flinched at the familiarity of the gesture. "A Nerv car is outside waiting for you. Your belongings have been packed. Good luck, Shinji."

The ride to his new home was uneventful. The Nerv agents driving him were as gloomy as always, and he spent most of his time worrying about how he'll cope with school. At the door of the residence stood a tall, lanky Britannian boy, almost scrawny-looking with ebony hair, curiously purple eyes and a murderously sharp look. The boys shook hands.

"Mr. Ikari, my pleasure," Lelouch said silkily. "Glad to have you here."

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Lamprouge," Shinji replied guardedly. Misato had ground proper manners into him every second they've been together, and warned him to always be warm on the surface, no matter what he thought. The boy led him back inside the home, a lavish affair of red rugs, chandeliers and velvet seats. A maid pushed a little wheelchair into view, with a brown haired girl sitting in it.

"Hello," she said. "Are you the new guest? Shinji, isn't it? I think we've met before."

"Miss Nunnally!"

Lelouch glanced at the Eleven with suspicion. How does this random boy know his sister? Nunnally seemed to sense his unease.

"Brother, I got lost at school, and Shinji pushed me back. He was selling ice cream on the streets. Sayoko, ahead, please."

The woman pushed the girl up to the boys, and Nunnally reached out her hand, which Shinji tried to shake, before the girl put both of hers around his and clasped it.

"How are you, Shinji," she asked.

"Just fine, Miss Nunnally," he said happily. "Such a coincidence, I guess."

She leaned forwards and touched his face, trying to determine his features. He felt a twinge of pity for the blind girl, and closed his eyes for her inspection. Lelouch looked on impassively, feeling as if he understood Mr. Fennette's apprehensive glance at the party, when he glimpsed Lelouch with his arms around Shirley. Nunnally's hands fell back into her lap, somewhat sadly.

"Welcome, Shinji. Enjoy your stay," she said, and the maid wheeled her away. Lelouch elbowed Shinji out of the room, much less friendly now. He was hurriedly shown around the school, introduced to the members of the student council, and brusquely returned to his room. The room itself was almost a palace by Shinji's standards. The space it had could hold three families in the ghetto. Lelouch shut the door behind him as he left the room with an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He blamed Sayoko for letting Nunnally get loose, and worried about Ikari being so close to her. He went berserk in his Eva, didn't he? What if he were to—

Lelouch slammed his fist against the wall, cursing himself for turning into a paranoid parent. The mild-mannered Ikari was no threat unless provoked, and certainly Nunnally would never be able to anger anyone. He's probably good company for her, anyway.

"Worried?"

C.C. appeared behind him, stuffed toy in hand.

"Nunnally will be fine," she said. "The boy is docile enough. On the other hand, the people he works for aren't. We've finished the probe into Nerv. Their security is almost airtight; there's nothing we can discover past a few basic bits of information. First, Nerv is an organization founded after Second Impact by a special UN charter to pursue some sort of bioengineering. It has strong ties to the Katsuragi Expedition to the South Pole just before Second Impact occurred, and something was brought back—a 'specimen' is all that our agent was told of. Nerv has built the Settlement with Britannia so that the city is filled with launch pads and weapons systems designed to intercept the Angels. It's all very odd, and our agent had gone missing right after he delivered the information. He is presumed dead, as his cyanide capsule shell was found on the sidewalk in a back alley."

Nerv, then, took something back from ground zero of Second Impact that aided them in developing some form of technology…presumably the Evas, as they were clearly synthetic organisms. The Evas themselves seem to have the same powers as the Angels now being fought. This means that whatever was at Antarctica had Angelic ties. Could the Angels have caused Second Impact? Lelouch could not be sure. He knew that no meteor strike produces the kind of side effects that Second Impact left. But if he was right, then Nerv not only possesses a sample of something powerful enough to destroy half a planet in one blow, but has also replicated it successfully three times. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up to think of the pure power that might be contained in each Evangelion. If this was the case with Nerv, then it would be even more imperative to get close to Ikari.

XXXXX

Ayanami…no, Aldington was still wrapped in gauze. She looked as cold as ever, her red eye glinting in the afternoon sun. They were sitting outside, comfortably far away but close enough for conversation. Shinji felt drained. He had burst out in rage during history class because of the propaganda-filled curriculum. Now he felt stupid and afraid. He'd managed to earn the enmity of the Britannians, which was bound to make him miserable sometime in the future.

"Ikari," Ayanami said in her whispery tone.

"Yes?"

"Why did you do that? Why did you resist like that? It's futile."

"But I'm Japanese…I can't let them demean me like that," he said. "It's pride, I guess. But I still can't just sit there and take it."

"And so, at great risk to yourself and your benefactors, you continue to fight?"

She leaned over the tree they were sitting against. The light played over her unnaturally white skin enticingly, the Ashford skirt showing way too much creamy leg. In her odd way, she was as beautiful as Langley, but cold as the Knight of Two was hotheaded, calm as Langley was passionate and soft as Langley was encased in a hard shell.

"But when you do, you put at risk all those people who've helped you," she said. "We all know that Britannia's curriculum is biased, so what is the point of throwing away even more to regain equality in the eyes of Britannia, which you've never had?"

"You don't understand," Shinji said. "You can pretend to be Britannian, pretend like you're one of them. I can't. I have to face my own identity, face who I am, right?"

"Yet you run away constantly…you backed down when you were challenged by that student. Even now, you look away. Why is that, Shinji Ikari? I do not understand."

"_Come on, Eleven, don't you have anything to say except to yell about injustice?" the boy sneered. "Let's hear your argument, then. Why should we treat you as equals?"_

"_B-because it's right!" he said. "It's because all people are born equal!"_

"_Then why is there poverty, huh?" the boy asked. "And war, terrorism and conflict? Look at the EU; they embrace equality, and what did it get them? A pant-load of conflict, nothing more! Sit down, Eleven, and don't presume to speak up against your betters!"_

_The teacher intervened, ending the argument there, and moved on to another topic. Shinji stayed silent. He couldn't say anything beyond the morality of the issue._

He drew his knees to his chest, staring blankly at the ground. Ayanami walked up to him.

"I'm sorry, I really cannot understand people well," she said. Her voice was silky, exotic in its blandness.

"That's okay," he said with a forced smile. "You tried to" The same, he realized, could be said for him. It made him feel a little bit, but not much, better. She nodded.

"Come, let's return now. I'll go first," she said, with perhaps a small tinge of warmth. He got up and followed her. As they reentered the building, the teacher from the past class appeared.

"Young man," he said. "We all teach what we're told to teach. The rot comes from up high. But I'm proud you spoke out. That was brave."

He grasped Shinji's hand.

"Well done, boy."

With that, he ambled away. Shinji flushed with pleasure, knowing that someone at least approved. Holding his head higher than he would have, he himself ran to catch up with Ayanami.

Around the corner, Lelouch nodded with satisfaction. The boy was as easy to mold as he thought. The Geass-controlled teacher walked past him, whistling as he walked.

"Well, Mr. Ikari," Lelouch whispered. "Let's see what you've got in your head."

**End Stage VIII**


	9. Langley

Code Evangelion

**Stage IX: Langley**

Pendragon, 1.5 kilometers underground

"All locks are secure, transport ship is awaiting loading," an operator's voice boomed over the P.A. system. A hum filled the underground factory as a huge crawler made its way up a ramp and onto the front of a massive ocean transport sitting in the long, deep canal with almost a hundred locks that served as a harbor, and allowed even this massive vessel to be brought over a kilometer below ground. The weight made the vessel dip forwards into the water, its propellers barely under the surface.

"Easy, easy, load the deadweights onto the back," the voice commanded. Piles of scrap iron were dumped into the back of the ship, which made it fall even again, albeit lying very low in the water. The contents of the crawler were hooked up to six cranes that dragged a movable frame onto the middle of the ship, which was cut away for this specific purpose. As it was dragged up, the iron weights in the back were hauled away, until the object rested in the exact center of the ship. Giant bolts clamped into place over the frame, and two movable metal covers closed over the entire middle of the ship, the hydraulics groaning under the covers' weight.

"Loading is complete, Evangelion Unit 02 is secure!" the man announced triumphantly. Cheers erupted among the workers, their jobs complete, and the ship let out a thundering roar of steam. The Evangelion's parts and weapons had long been shipped out, and the bare-bones base was being dismembered, all of its assets transferred to Area Eleven for the battle there. Along with it went workers, military contractors and companies by the hordes. The fight against alien and indestructible enemies cost money, money attracted business, and business needed land.

Land owned almost exclusively by one person.

Asuka Langley sat next to the transport's captain, gazing over her Evangelion with considerable pride. The production model Evangelion was fully optimized for combat, with Knightmare-style Landspinners, oversized Harkens and four Factosphere IIs, enhanced Factosphere sensors made into the appropriate size for an Eva. They had the detection ability of an entire land-based radar array and more. Being unable to function without exterior power, Evas' power supplies are their lifeblood. She could slip in custom made energy fillers if she needed to, and some genius somewhere had even found it possible to slip in a Core Luminous and sakuradite electrical system into the Eva, extending activation time by as much as three minutes in Gain mode, and one minute in full power. Whereas older Evas functioned for one to five minutes, she could fight for two to eight.

The ship trembled, shaking her out of her reverie.

"Milady, we are about to be underway," the captain said. "Do you wish us to take you to your personal ship now?"

"I'm travelling in the _Rainbow_," she said. "I can get there myself. Thank you for your hospitality, captain." They shook hands, the weathered seaman's hands easily dwarfing that of the fourteen-year old, and Asuka left the bridge. Before she boarded the helicopter that would take her to the HMS _Over the Rainbow_, the Britannian Pacific Fleet flagship, she went down to the cargo bay where her Eva was bolted down for the trip. With no one else around, she trotted to the silent head, and sat down on a protrusion of metal.

"Hello," she said after a while. "So you're finally complete." It was a lame attempt to start a conversation, not that the Eva could respond, anyway. She still felt the need to speak to it, however. This was the project that had taken her mother away from Asuka and caused her to be left in the Langley mansion. In a test with this machine, her mother had gone insane. Duke Langley did not even visit her as she languished in a small mental hospital, and Asuka was the only one who was there to watch as the shell of a woman talked day and night to a small doll, whom she thought to be her daughter. When she hanged herself from a ceiling fan, Asuka was the only one there to witness it. The body was dumped in a public graveyard with naught but a small stone marking. Perhaps the Duke had felt some guilt, for he later adopted Asuka as his own daughter. Her mother's research in psycho-communication had made the Langleys fabulously wealthy after the collapse of the Ashfords, when the field of Knightmare research was up for grabs. Now, Asuka was the one reaping almost all the benefits of that initial wealth, having systematically stripped her half-siblings of much of their holdings. It was her mother's to begin with, after all. She ran a hand over the smooth metal helmet, feeling the cold metal. The machine had deprived her of her mother, yet it was also Kyoko Zeppelin's last true love and the sole tie between Asuka and her.

"What was mama like?" she asked it arbitrarily. After a moment, she chided herself for being so silly. Of course a machine could not have known. Perhaps it did, as she had been told that an imprinted personality was the key to the operation of its computer system, and the designers usually put in their own personalities for ease of control. If so, it would have known Asuka's mother.

Asuka leaned her weight against the metal, feeling tears warming her eyes. Quickly, she got up and dabbed her eyes dry with her handkerchief. To be seen crying over one's weapon was bound to rouse unnecessary questions. Kaji was waiting outside the door discreetly, and took her silently to a Sikorsky S-76. She was extraordinarily quiet as she perused some paperwork while reclining on the soft leather seat. The flight was over as soon as it began, having no need to go but to the carrier no more than a half kilometer away. The journey would be no older than a week before Nerv-Area 11 sent a delegation to take the Eva as it sailed into the Area. It was time enough for Asuka to catch up on mundane work, but she did not feel like it, not with her mother's last creation right here. Kaji always ably handled her daily affairs.

She glanced out the window at the massive ship that loomed below her, the pride of the Britannian navy, the pre-Impact HMS _Over the Rainbow_. It was too large, she thought, a target that a good artilleryman cannot possibly miss. For it to survive, it needs the support of a small armada, many more ships protecting its vulnerable body. Though it was tactically vital, she didn't feel as if it deserved the laurels it got. The glory should at least be split up more among the protective fleet, who made it possible for the hulking carrier to survive. It was like the nobles that ran this empire, taking credit but doing not nearly as much as they should have for the amount of praise heaped upon them.

XXXXX

Shinji locked the mop back into its closet, satisfied that the floor was squeaky clean. With nothing left to do, he sat back and reclined in his chair. His schoolwork stared mockingly at him, as if daring him to try them. For the newly enrolled Shinji, they were far more difficult than he could imagine, yet he could not speak out, for fear of damaging the Elevens' already fragile intellectual reputation. With some difficulty, he flipped open a random book and looked helplessly at its contents. There was no hope of further insights, not even when the history teacher had taken time to give him extra help. Honestly, if he was just going to take in information and regurgitate it back, it shouldn't be so hard, should it?

With that mentality, he sat down and got to work memorizing the day's lectures and the next day's work. He wouldn't disappoint anyone, not even the cold and harsh Misato, to whom he owed this improvement in his lot in life. Midnight found him still working, yawning widely and barely taking in any new information. Weariness must be put aside, however, if he was to catch up. It was Friday, anyway. Tomorrow he could sleep long and well.

He didn't; at six o'clock sharp, a bell rang in his head, after a mere five hours of sleep. It did nothing to stir him, so the maid, Miss Sayoko, rapped lightly on the door.

"Master Ikari, this is your wake-up call," she said. "Master Lelouch said that you must wake up on the weekends at six for your own reasons." Finding his head again, Shinji painfully tore himself from the maddeningly comfortable bed and answered the maid, who told him to be ready in ten minutes, when she would bring him breakfast, and to please be quiet for the sake of Miss Nunnally. Shinji didn't mind doing it for Nunnally, but was Lamprouge awake already? He was partially angry at the Britannian for making him wake up so early when, rightfully, as a student, he should be snoring away even now.

His inquiry was answered when Lamprouge himself came to the door and said, "Mr. Ikari, are you awake now?"

"Yes, Mr. Lamprouge," he said, automatically deferring to the Britannian.

"Please, Lelouch will be fine," Lamprouge said warmly. "I'm afraid that your guardian has instructed that you should go to her place today at six forty-five."

"Oh, alright," Shinji replied. "Sorry about the inconvenience."

Lelouch laughed lightheartedly, saying, "No need to apologize, Mr. Ikari, Sayoko and I wake up an hour earlier."

"Please, call me Shinji," Shinji said. "I'm glad I'm not too much of a burden." The exchange of civilities was soon stagnating into empty pleasantries. With a quick farewell, Lelouch broke it off before Ikari set him down as a stiff person, an image he was trying to avoid. Sayoko was walking up when Shinji opened the door, fully dressed but drowsy-eyed. He had forgotten that his breakfast will be served to him in his room, as there was little time to go down. Gratefully, he drank the heavily diluted cup of coffee and dug into the beautifully prepared scrambled eggs, bacon and English muffin. He was slightly annoyed that Misato called him up so early without telling him why. A Nerv car—he could never tell if all the cars and drivers were merely clones—took him straight to Nerv. Strangely, Lelouch left at the exact same time with a white motorbike, seeming to tail them and them veering off the main thoroughfare.

Nerv was fully swept, the Cage emptied and a new Eva dock opened. Wasn't Unit 02 coming from Pendragon? Did it get here already? Shinji's heart skipped a beat. Langley would be aboard. He was at a loss for what he should say or do when he sees her again. Misato met him in the Cage, ran him through some basics of official reception, and ushered him away to change into an official Nerv uniform, a very Britannian affair with a creamy white jacket, golden trimming and shoulder pads with tassels, and matching pants with riding boots. A golden leaf emblem was stitched into the front. He was to wear a ridiculous, plumed hat that he was to take off with his right hand and hold plume-forwards against the left side of his chest as he bowed. He had a chance to practice when, suddenly, Cornelia li Britannia burst into the Cage. Shinji hastily bowed as he was instructed, well enough that Cornelia did not notice any oddity. They all rushed terribly. Shinji was feeling the weight of his long night. Soon, he found himself onboard a large transport helicopter next to Misato and…

Zero

Zero appeared right in the helicopter, with his mask and cloak. Shinji jumped, not knowing what to do. Zero waved the formalities off.

"I am not part of your chain of command," he said casually. "So let us forgo the ceremony and get going." Shinji's eyes were more drawn to Zero's personal guard than to anything else. She was a young woman, with her uniform hat cocked down over her face, but he could see bright red hair poking out; familiar hair. Perhaps he'd seen her in the ghetto, but the red hair was clearly not Japanese. It was odd that a Britannian would be working for the Black Knights.

The helicopter's rumbling engine cut off any other thoughts as it ascended. Shinji tried not to look at Zero but found his interest insatiable. For his part, the man was occupied with business, tapping away on a laptop turned against Shinji and Misato. Nerv was a Britannian institution, so why was Zero so calmly working onboard one of its helicopters? Doubtlessly, as temporary allies, Zero would be privy to at least meeting the new Knight to join their collective ranks—her identity was hardly a secret—but the number of Britannian troop carriers meant that he would likely be kept from doing anything but offering his greetings. The Elevens seemed to be left out of the loop, with the essentials of the operation all going to Britannian hands. They were reliant on Nerv for protection, and thus were at a serious disadvantage.

Lelouch had been thinking along the same lines, sans the concern for Elevens. The helicopter cleared the clouds above the fleet, homing in on the giant floating airfield that was the _Rainbow_. Onboard, a troupe of Knightmares was already assembled, and even from almost a thousand feet in the air, Shinji could see the light glinting off of Langley's uniform. She had recovered pretty fast in the weeks following the latest attack, considering how badly she was hurt. With a sigh the plane's engines came to a halt, and Misato threw a hand over the door.

"Shinji, follow me," she ordered. "Master Zero, you and your aide will follow behind Shinji. This is a Nerv operation, and you are visitors only."

Zero nodded sanguinely, holding back until Shinji and she exited the plane, then held the door for Kallen as she got off with a hand on her cap, which the buffeting high winds were threatening to tear off. Zero had no problem with his helmet, she noted with some jealousy.

Across the deck, the figure of Asuka Langley seemed to tower over the squad of Langley guards that stood to attention behind her, despite her being barely more than half their average height. Misato bowed slightly, cap in hand, and Shinji followed when his superior had straightened. Langley returned the gesture with a salute. Zero skulked in the back, a mere spectator, though Langley cast her eye in his direction with a hint of unease.

"Lady Langley," Misato said in her official voice. "It is an honor to have you here with us."

Langley did not seem to mind the Numbers on her deck, but returned Misato's pleasantries as if they were Britannians.

"Captain Katsuragi," she acknowledged. "The pleasure is mine." The women shook hands rigidly. Misato stood aside and ushered Shinji in. A spark of recognition flared between the two, though Langley showed no sign of it. Misato seemed disappointed that she had to continue to scrape at Langley's feet by introducing Shinji.

"Milady, may I present the Third Child, Shinji Ikari, pilot of Evangelion Unit 01?" she said. "Mr. Ikari, Lady Asuka Langley, daughter of His Grace the Duke of Langley and Second Knight of the Realm." As he was coached to do, Shinji bowed, deeper this time. Langley nodded to him, a hint of a smile playing about the corner of her lips.

"Mr. Ikari," she said, holding out her hand. "I believe we will be fighting alongside each other now."

Shinji stared at the gloved hand, lost. Misato kicked him in the leg—the motion was not lost on Langley, who smirked—and Shinji realized that she meant for him to kiss her hand, which was an action he was taught to perform, though was never expected to exercise, especially not at an official reception. Misato's kick brought him back to the real world, and he took Langley's fingers in his hand and lowered himself to her knuckles, not moving the hand up at all. Misato looked relieved that she taught him how to do it in case some lady decided to play Nerv for fools. Langley withdrew her hand with a look on her face that conceded enough of a victory on Nerv's part that Misato was able to stand taller and play a wider smile. From a distance, Zero chortled.

"They know what they're doing," he said. "Not too bad, Captain. The boy is a good trained monkey. Credit, of course, goes to the trainer and not the beast. You play this game well." Kallen was a little shocked and dismayed at his cold and blunt assertions, but no harm was done as everyone was out of earshot. A tall, red haired man prowled in the far corner of the Britannian honor guard, Langley's often-slighted older brother, who looked as beet-red as ever at his sister offering her hand to an Eleven. Zero laughed at the weak, pathetic man. He was almost penniless for a nobleman of his status, his lands in the hands of his sister. The lands that he had deemed worthless and had sold to Asuka Langley were now abounding with crazed growth stemming from hundreds of greasy military contracts. Henry Langley could squirm, but he couldn't free himself from under his teenage sister's thumb.

"Kallen," he whispered. "Do you see the man in the back? That is the best example of the worthless noble scum that drain the life from their country with their incompetence. Ridicule him, for soon he will be lower than scum." The words carried a certain prophetic power, as if Zero seriously intended to overthrow all of the nobility and shatter Britannia's backbone. Even Kallen found that unlikely.

"Sir, don't go over your head," she reprimanded. "You are playing with fire."

"My dear Kallen, if not fire, then what on earth is worth playing with?" Zero shot back in good humor. The reception had apparently ended, and Zero was able to creep up and make his introductions. The good lady did not offer her hand, he observed with a laugh. But she did offer a number of polite greetings, which he appreciated. The officials left to speak with the captain of the ship, and Langley excused herself, sending her manservant as her representative. This left Zero, Ikari, Kallen, Lady Langley and the guards alone. She dismissed her guards, and looked towards Shinji. Catching the hint, Zero withdrew to gather intelligence on the ship's weapons as much as he was permitted.

Langley beckoned Shinji forwards, and he followed her off to a helicopter docked at the edge of the deck. There was no pilot, though the engine was humming.

"You're very gloomy, Mr. Ikari," she observed. "Does the sea not agree with you?"

She had her full shield of pleasantness up, and was not very open to him. They entered the helicopter together, where she immediately relaxed in the pilot's seat.

"May I call you Shinji?" she asked.

"Uh, sure," he said. "I mean, yes, milady." She allowed herself the liberty of a small laugh, though she made no moves to grant him permission to use her first name. The helicopter was on autopilot after takeoff, which Asuka performed easily. Landing was done via remote control by some unknown controller onboard the transport ship.

"Uh, where are we going, ma'am?" he asked with caution.

"To see Unit 02," she said. "Where else would we go?" They walked along a metal corridor into the groaning interior of the ship, Asuka in the lead, her status clearing the way instantly. Before a metal bulkhead, she stopped to punch in a password. The bulkhead hissed open, though beyond it, all that Shinji could see were a mass of metal walls almost completely filling the space, leaving no more room than one thin walkway for people to use.

"Shinji," Langley said with considerable pride as they came around a set of stairs and found themselves over a purple pool with a fiery red Eva lying in it. "This is Evangelion Unit 02, the final Production Model, the first truly combat-based Evangelion, whereas Units 00 and 01 were mere test beds."

She turned to him.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked pointedly, abandoning all formality and, in Shinji's mind, her pretension of being an adult and a Lady. She was like a small child showing off a prized toy.

"Impressive," he said. The only difference that he could see were the color, a set of Knightmare Landspinners, and an even bigger back section than in 00 and 01, more liable to slow her down than anything. Two large rectangles also jutted out by the side of the cockpit block. She caught him staring.

"Energy filler receptacles," she said. "For recharging the internal battery while on the move"

"Neat," he commented, and then catching himself being too casual. She didn't notice, although she was put off by his lack of enthusiasm. Part of her was embarrassed at her own childishness, and she was forced to abandon the topic. Shinji looked her over again and, summoning his courage, asked, "How've you been, milady? It's been a while since I, um, saw you."

Her heart warmed a little, chilled as it was by weeks of hospitalization and dealing with business while bedridden. The boy showed more sincerity than the whole of the Imperial Court put together, she lamented.

"Very well, thanks to your timely intervention," she said with a smile, walking closer to him. He blushed like a normal boy and scratched his heat with an awkward laugh.

"Uh, sure, I guess, well…I couldn't just leave you there…" he said nervously. Was he bordering on indiscretion? She sure didn't mind his casualness, and seemed friendly in general. His natural fear of Britannians, of course, was already in shambles. For Asuka's part, she was glad he could open up more. Fighting alongside a gloomy and closed comrade is not only draining but also dangerous, if the situation arose for them to cooperate. He was harder to talk to than she had expected, from his outbursts on the mountain, though he seemed to be in great distress then. Wishing for the open sea to replace the stuffy metal box of the cargo hold, she led him out into the brilliant light of day. Overhead, a pair of seagulls cruised in the warm air, cawing loudly as they fought playfully. The clouds were sparse, and the sun shone in its full glory, covering the fleet in its bright rays. Shinji was again unable to help but stare at Langley's hair in its golden glory. She let him admire her, secretly enjoying every bit of his naïve wonder, tilting her head back more to show an additional sliver of her beauty.

"Do you like what you see?" she teased. His face reddened even deeper.

"Um, I didn't mean to stare," he stammered. "I'm sorry, milady…"

"Women weren't made to be stashed away where nobody could see them," she said with a wink. "Looking is free." She was in such a good mood that she didn't bother putting up an air of superiority, and her friendliness, she observed, was cultivating the pliable Shinji very well.

"Don't be so stiff," she told him. "We'll be watching each other's backs from now on, so it's important that we are friendly with each other. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am"

In the distance, a destroyer crumpled into a purple fireball.

**End Stage IX**


	10. Asuka Strikes!

Code Evangelion

**Stage X: Asuka Strikes!**

Sirens blared above the din of the destruction as the fleet broke up into evasive maneuvers. Onboard the _Rainbow_, the Admiral slammed his fist into the center console.

"All ships, fire at will!" he barked. "Unload all torpedoes; we bought them for a reason! Sonar room, give me a tracking map of the thing's movements."

A spray of seawater followed something immense roaring by beneath the waves. It was huge, and had sunk two battleships already. Torpedoes, missiles and cannon fire didn't seem to even scratch it. There was even a VARIS rifle wielded by one of Langley's guards' Sutherlands, which was doing nothing but blowing up jets of water.

"Why won't it sink?" the Admiral moaned bitterly.

"It is an Angel, and only an Evangelion can destroy it, sir," a fresh voice said. A tall, handsome Britannian noble strode into the room, with well-oiled dark-tinted blue hair swept back to reveal a smooth forehead and intelligent eyes. He wore the Langley crest on his chest, and his elaborate cloak labeled him as a

"Jeremiah Gottwald, what are you doing here?" the Admiral barked. "This is a combat situation!"

"Where is Lady Langley?" Gottwald demanded.

A younger guard huffed into the room, tapping Gottwald on the shoulder.

"Milady is on the transport, Captain," he said. "She took the Eleven and the helicopter."

Gottwald whirled to the window, searching the horizon for the big transport. He found it, and the giant waves heading right at it.

"The Angel, it's heading right at the ship!" he screamed, almost in fear. "Milady—"

XXXXX

"Move it!" Langley barked, ushering Shinji into a stairwell. She herself ran down before him, slapped a few numbers into the lock of a door, and pulled him inside.

"Milady, where are we going?" he squealed.

"Fool! There's an unknown enemy destroying our ships, and it's not taking damage from conventional weapons. Where do you _think_ I'm leading you?" She leapt onto a platform, dumped Shinji onto the deck and began immediately to tap another password onto the top of a large white cylinder that protruded from the deck—an Entry Plug.

"Wait, we're going to take the Eva?" Shinji squeaked. "But…does…Misato—does Captain Katsuragi know about this?"

Langley paused as the top of the plug blasted open with a hiss.

"I am the Knight of Two," she spat. "I serve His Majesty the Holy Britannian Emperor himself, and answer only to him and the Imperial Family. I need no approval from underlings to do what I deem appropriate and is within reason." Langley's good humor had all but given away to a tense battle-readiness. "Get inside," she ordered.

The Plug lit up, and Langley dipped her head. She retrieved a gold-and-white key from her pocket and jammed it into a small slot in front of her.

"Mental pattern recognition activate," she commanded. "Compensate for thought noise."

The Plug flashed a myriad of colors, spun upon itself and accepted her into the system.

"Updating system data; welcome, milady," the AI intoned. Suddenly, during the last phase of activation, everything turned red.

"Ah, it's an error!" Shinji cried.

"It's thought noise!" Langley scolded. "You're thinking in Japanese, aren't you? If you must think, do it in Britannian English, at least!"

"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled. He concentrated on using only English in his mind. He was perfectly fluent, but thinking in a different language was…unnatural. It was good enough that the system activated, though, and once it had locked onto Langley's signal, he was free to think however he wished.

"Evangelion Unit 02, moving out!"

XXXXX

"Yes, the package is approaching Japan, then. Very well," Gendo said into the phone. "The Second Child is en route as well. I've even generously provided a spare pilot. If it comes to it, escape by yourself."

"Understood," Kaji grunted on the other end of the line. Disgusted, he shut off the phone and stared at the package on his room's floor. Abandon Asuka, for the sake of this monstrosity? He hated the coldhearted Gendo Ikari, and needed him at the same time. Angry, he plopped down on the bed to peer, useless, at the spectacle outside. The scene was his stomach queasy. The Angel was charging right at the Evangelion transport ship…he could only pray that she had escaped in time. As for the Eva, though…

To his shock, the cover of the transport cracked open, and a tarpaulin draped figure launched out just as the Angel struck the ship. With a splash, the figure landed on another ship. The tarpaulin fluttered into the air, revealing the red figure of Evangelion Unit 02. A pair of Factosphere sensors closed, and the Evangelion took to the air again, leapfrogging over the fleet and leaving a trail of crushed metal as it leapt around. He sprang up, abandoned the suitcase and ran to find his way to the carrier.

Onboard the _Rainbow_, there was nothing short of complete mayhem. Langley's guards ran around bullying the crew into preparing the power cable that Nerv had brought for emergencies and to connect it to the ship's generator, while the ship's command tried desperately to get as many of the ship's planes below decks as was possible. Over the P.A., a man blared out, "All hands, brace for impact!" moments before the sun was blotted out by the Evangelion crashing onto the deck. The entire ship tilted, sending fighters tumbling into the water. The two Landspinners fell to the deck spinning backwards and pulling the Eva back up with them. The ship settled, very low, into the water. The Eva snatched the handle of the Umbilical Cable and jammed it into the slot on her back.

Inside the Plug, Shinji breathed a sigh of relief as the 00:07:00 on the power display turned into "External."

"External power established," Langley said coldly. "Unit 02 is engaging the target."

She turned to him.

"If you want, you can get out," she told him. "But if you're going to do it, then go now."

He shook his head.

"I'll stay," he said. "I'm not running away, if I'm not getting in your way."

She nodded, and turned back to the sea. She tapped a set of commands into a small virtual keyboard, bringing up a holographic display of Unit 02, with the shoulder pylons, chest area, knees and feet illuminated.

"Weapons," she explained. "Harkens, Progressive Knife, hidden blades; not much for something like this—" she opened a channel to the Rainbow. "Captain Katsuragi, did Nerv bring any weapons?"

"There wasn't any space on the transports," Misato replied.

"I see," she said. Then, in a self-satisfied aside to Shinji, "I suppose I now have an excuse to hunt an Angel with nothing but a knife and Harkens."

She ripped a red blade handle out of the left pylon, and snapped out a long, thin blade. It glowed red and hummed with the power pumped through it. Langley turned to face the incoming Angel.

"Evangelion Unit 02, commencing attack!"

The stream became larger, darkening the entire ocean, just as a gigantic "whale" the size of the _Rainbow_ appeared in the air, leaping like salmon.

"Let's go!" Langley roared. She slid down the length of the deck from the Angel, snatched it as it passed and dug into it with the knife. A sizzling hiss accompanied a spray of superheated bodily fluids that jetted out of a long gash in the Angel's side. The next moment, both Harkens were buried atop the Angel, holing Unit 02 onto its back. Langley drove both the knee blades into the Angel, and slashed open the Angel's back. The fishlike creature writhed, sweeping the deck clean and falling back into the water as its slippery hide gained no traction on the _Rainbow_'s metal deck. With a splash and hiss, the knife short-circuited.

"Shit!" Langley screamed, throwing away the useless weapon. She tried to move the Eva, but it flopped, carried by the Angel and held on by the Harkens.

"Ma'am, we're in B-Type equipment!" Shinji gasped. "We…can't fight underwater."

"I know that! Shut up back there!" she yelled. "System, reset!"

"Reset in sixty seconds," the AI intoned. "Warning, all combat systems are unable to function. Recommend leaving water."

"Oh, you stupid thing!" she cried in frustration. Finding that the Harken reel worked, she pulled the Eva onto the Angel's back.

"Goddamn it," she snarled. "At least we won't let it get away."

Shinji hung on, barely staying on his feet. Langley was a completely different person now, someone hardheaded, impervious and angry. Her pride had taken complete control of an otherwise agreeably pleasant girl. The Angel was a fish, and swam pretty damn fast for so big a fish, so much so that it instantly covered several kilometers of distance between itself and the _Rainbow_. The cable feed was spinning at a dizzying rate, until four zeroes blared to life. The Eva was wrenched away with enough force to feel like an explosion, the Harkens dislodged, and Shinji was thrown forwards into Langley's lap by the force of the Eva spinning helplessly in the water. Unit 02 hung limp while the Angel slid into the deep. Beneath the ocean, the corpse of a city submerged danced in ghostly light.

"Damn…" Langley whispered. She sat hunched over, LCL-drenched clothes sticking to her body. She was shivering and breathing rapidly. For once, the proud face was blushing, and she seemed to shrink in her seat. A little sympathetic, Shinji reached out.

"Angel, at eleven o'clock, milady," he whispered, taking a chance. "You can still intercept it."

She nodded, a little more relaxed. The water shuddered as the Angel punched through it at Unit 02.

"Incoming!"

The beast's maw opened, saber-like teeth clamping down on the Eva. A metallic crunch shook the inside of the Entry Plug, making Langley scream and grab at her abdomen. The Rainbow lurched as the force of the Angel's pull sank one end of the carrier into the water. Over the intercom, Gottwald roared, "Jettison! We're pulling you out, milady!"

"No, Jeremiah, you damn fool!" Langley yelled. "I'm not letting it get away!" Ahead, Shinji could see the Angel's Core.

"Misato, the Core is right in the thing's mouth," he reported. In response, Misato's relieved voice came on over the line.

"Understood, are you onboard, Shinji?"

"Yes, ma'am"

"He's a mere commoner and a Number!" Gottwald seethed. "He deserves no place with Lady Langley during a battle."

"Jeremiah, I don't care," Langley said. "Captain Katsuragi, any suggestions?" She was surprisingly calm.

"May I, madam?" a new voice joined.

"Zero, what are _you_ doing on the bridge?" Kaji snapped.

"Offering my opinion on the situation," the masked man replied smoothly.

"What's your plan, Zero?" Langley asked coldly.

"There are two surviving battleships, the _HMS Odysseus eu Britannia_ and the _HMS Gabrielle la Britannia_. Both are capable of launching a full torpedo broadside. If we tow the Angel behind us, then the two battleships can sail across and launch all their torpedoes at the Angel's mouth. At that moment, if Lady Langley can open the Angel's mouth, then the Core would be destroyed."

"That's out of the question!" Gottwald barked. "As Captain of Lady Langley's guard, I refuse to allow such a reckless move!"

"Do it, Zero," Langley ordered. "Jeremiah, I'll be fine. Alert the _Gabrielle_ and the _Odysseus_. Langley, out"

The intercom closed, she leaned back and took a deep breath, letting a string of bubbles escape her lungs. She loosened the neck of her cape and let it float away.

"_Rainbow_, retracting cable and beginning towing," a radio operator called.

"Evangelion Unit 02 copies"

"Battleships are in alignment and prepared to fire port torpedo launchers."

"Commencing counterattack," Langley ordered with no particular emotion in her voice.

With a grunt, she threw all her weight against the controls, forcing them to move. Throughout the Angel, a rumble tickled the dark water as Unit 02 began to budge. The Angel fought back hard, caught as it was. The tiny Eva seemed to lack the necessary strength, Shinji thought. He wished he could help her, but all he could do was lean a hand on the seat and furiously think, _'Open, open, open, open, open, open, open!'_

His fingers sank into the soft seat, digging in and trying to pump more power into the Eva's muscles.

Langley was whispering, "Please, mother, don't fail me." Shinji did not understand, but apparently it triggered something strange. The small bar indicating synchronization strength suddenly shot forwards, and Unit 02's helmet snapped open to reveal a quadruplet of eyes in between her camera eyes. With a final groan, the jaws were forced open just as a wave of torpedoes slammed into the Core. On the surface, seawater turned a gurgling white, and then melted into one gigantic geyser as the Angel blew apart, the shockwaves shredding the fleet's formation. Moments later, the sun was eclipsed by Evangelion Unit 02, which fell headlong onto the _Rainbow_'s flight deck with a groan and a hum as it deactivated.

Langley was laughing with pleasure for the first time Shinji had ever seen her do so. Perhaps as a result of the intense tension that was released, he laughed with her. For a blessed few minutes, boundaries between them disappeared as they reveled in the sweetness of being alive.

XXXXX

New Yokoshima Harbor

Kaji walked away carrying his cargo while Asuka made her farewells to Ikari and the rest of the Nerv staff. Also fuming, Gottwald escorted the manservant to a waiting car to take him to Nerv, all the while looking over his shoulder to be sure that the guards left with Asuka were doing their jobs the way they should be. They were cordoning off a discreet area where greetings and welcomes would be made, and Gottwald strained to see if all the necessary security precautions would be taken.

"Gottwald, you are too attentive," Kaji said. "Her Ladyship can protect herself as well as anyone could. You treat her as if she was your child."

"Not good enough," Gottwald huffed. "You know how I came to serve as her guard. I won't let anything happen to her."

Kaji raised an eyebrow, momentarily amused. Years ago, a disgraced and impoverished young minor noble had been languishing in obscurity when Asuka Langley stumbled across the young man's military record. He had been convicted of cowardice and insubordination for pulling a squadron of Sutherlands out of what was certainly a trap, in the process saving both himself and his men. His commanding officer, furious at having his command skills successfully challenged by a subordinate, promptly used his connections to court-martial the young Jeremiah Gottwald. The same officer ran into the exact same trap some months later and caught an RPG to the cockpit of his Sutherland, not that it helped Gottwald much. He was taken in as a guard for the young girl and worked solo until her ascension in the Emperor's favor. Kaji thought the man a fanatical fool, unable to break away from his medieval beliefs of loyalty, although it was useful—the grateful man was like a mother bear when Asuka Langley was involved. Kaji himself owed the young lady many years of outstandingly good treatment, considering his low status, which did not waver with her rising rank.

"All the same, she's already out of danger," he said, concluding the conversation.

XXXXX

"…and despite our warning, Ikari had disregarded our warning and removed the Sample from Germany," Keel Lorenz concluded. "What is this council's opinion on the matter?"

"Ikari must be punished," a high-pitched voice called. "He must not again defy our instruction. In addition, the Sample was almost lost to the latest Angel when Ikari's man refused to abandon the Britannian fleet and ensure the Sample's safety. Now that it has been delivered into his possession, it is a trump card to be held against us."

"It may have been wise to remove the Sample into Britannian territory," a deep-set man rumbled. "Second Prince Schnizel is eyeing the EU very intensely, and the EU knows that it has no power to counter him. If Ikari had consulted us, we may have permitted a move to _Pendragon_. But taking it to Area 11 is _unacceptable_."

"All the same, we are powerless to touch him while the Britannian Emperor protects him," a third man chimed. "The need to replace Ikari is great."

"At the cost of setting the Instrumentality Project back almost a decade?" Keel thundered. "That is also unacceptable. We must handle Ikari until the time when his usefulness runs out."

"Hear, hear," the council voiced.

"This meeting will adjourn here. Good day, gentlemen," Keel said. One by one, the lights in the dark room winked out until he was the only one remaining.

"Ikari, you bastard," Keel swore. "But I may get you yet. Watch your steps carefully."

His light also went out, and the room was dark, except for one small glint. It was a tawny tabby cat that strode through the meeting room, seeing with the faint light that glowed from yet-warm lighting panels. It meowed, scowling, and leapt away through a half-shut venting grate from whence it snuck in. Outside, a man casually leaning against the wall caught it as it fell, ruffled the cat's fur and removed the small bell on its neck. The bell did not ring. The man hurried away, leaving the cat to stretch lazily and wander off in search of some treats.

The cat, now left alone, wandered far and wide for a long while, eventually wriggling through a not-so-effective fence and appearing before a lanky, brown-haired boy, who looked up from his book in surprise. The cat yowled and jumped onto his lap. He screamed and the cat clung to him in panic, claws digging in. He yelled even harder and tried to beat it off of his lap while other kids stopped to gawk or laugh.

"Oh, silly, you mustn't do that," a female voice called. A pink-haired girl ran over, grabbed the boy by the shoulders and held him still. Sure enough, after a moment, the cat's claws retracted and the animal landed on its paws, yowling with dissatisfaction.

"Uh, thanks," he said awkwardly. Her face, though still hidden by sunglasses, was familiar. "Um, is that you, Ms. Euphy?" She nodded, a wide brim hat tastefully hiding her face.

"Euphy is fine, Suzaku," she said, cuddling the cat. "We're no strangers, right?"

He laughed uncomfortably.

"Well, I guess not," he said. "Wow, you handled the cat really well." He glared at the feline, who licked his paws with due unconcern.

She scowled at him, "There's no trick to it, Suzaku. Just try to understand, Arthur's scared. If you stopped moving he'd calm down."

"Arthur?"

Euphy raised the cat for his eyes. The word "Arthur" was printed into the rubber of his collar.

"Oh," he said, scratching his head. "I guess I should have looked closer." Nudging him on the arm, she hurried the boy back into the school building, disappointed by his awkwardness. Her hat slipped a little, and she jumped to correct it, dropping Arthur in the process. Unhelpfully, the cat ran away immediately.

"Come back!" she cried, and hitched up her skirt running after it, hollering, "You don't know what you'll run into!" as if the cat could understand her. It did not, and continued running. Deciding that leaving "Euphy" wasn't really an option, Suzaku followed her, unnerved by that strange sense of familiarity he felt when he glanced at what was visible of her face. The cat was fast and agile, and Euphy looked too stubborn to give up on anything. They arrived, some minutes later, at an empty plot of land adjourning Shinjuku, where the cat ran itself out and gave up. Euphy groaned in exhaustion, sweat drenching her back. She stumbled, and fell into Suzaku's arms. Her hat and glasses fell away.

"P-Princess Euphemia?" he gasped. Euphemia—Euphy—it made sense now. But this meant that he was in some deep trouble. The Third Princess was passed out in his Japanese lap, on the edge on Shinjuku, in a very un-princess-like situation.

"Crap…" he moaned. Her body was hot from running, and he could feel her heart thumping. It was…arousing. His pants were being tugged…it was not good. Her face was beautiful, with small, pink lips and long lashes. If he could, he would kiss her, and…

Sharp claws dug into his face with a loud yowl. Arthur was on him, and then he was not. When Suzaku spat out the last bits of cat fur, the culprit was sitting contentedly up on a piece of road, licking his paws and not looking at Suzaku.

"Thanks," he said shamefacedly. "You saved me from doing something really, really stupid." Well, he was a young man, and she was a gorgeous girl. What did he expect? He looked around. The princess was getting herself off of the ground, where he had dropped her.

"I, I'm sorry, your Highness," he stammered. "I, uh, didn't mean to drop you, but…" he glared at the cat, who yawned. She reddened, realizing that her cover was gone.

"Don't fret, Suzaku," she said amiably. "I should apologize for deceiving you."

"No, no, I understand," he said. She smiled and flicked some dirt off of her dress.

"You've cat hair all over you, Suzaku. Can't you manage a single cat for any length of time without me around?" she said tauntingly.

"Eh, I guess not, your Highness," he scratched his head. She chose not to further the conversation, as they were both tired and worn out. The streets rumbled, and Arthur screeched, his back fur high.

"What was—" Suzaku yelled. The rumbling hiss of tires meant Knightmares. Military instincts took over as he grabbed the princess and stowed her behind an outcropping of rubble as four Sutherlands rolled into view, each adorned with family crests and dark red shoulders. They were Purist faction noblemen, extreme conservatives dedicated to keeping Britannia for only full-blooded Britannians. Hate mongering fools, Euphemia thought angrily. They accepted no change in the social order and permitted no progress.

"Suzaku, do you have a military radio on you?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am; I have one for emergencies."

"Find their channel," she ordered.

"I, uh, I don't know how," he stammered. "I'm not a radio technician…"

"Do it. Find a way," she said in a low growl. Luckily for Suzaku, the Purists were using a common channel and did not encrypt their conversation.

"…_fully defend my position as an honorable one in the service of an honorable mistress,"_ a man said with firm anger.

"_She's a half-breed brat!"_ someone else spat. _"You are a full-fledged, true Britannian. Why are you—"_

The speaker was cut off as one Sutherland charged at it with its tonfa and swung at the speaker's Knightmare, which cut off the blow mid swing and lashed out with its own weapon.

"_Jeremiah, you damn fool!"_ he roared. _"Are you disavowing the Purist faction?"_

"_I refuse to stand against my mistress," _"Jeremiah" said flatly.

"_This isn't the twelfth century, man!"_ a high-pitched voice said. _"Drop it and find a new mistress."_

"_Honor has no time limits!" _Jeremiah spat. _"Get lost!"_

"_Too bad; we aren't going anywhere," _the nasal voice sneered. All three Sutherlands wheeled into Jeremiah's machine and knocked it back. The Knightmare's legs split wide, keeping its base low. The dirt flew up in clouds as the machines grappled. With a screech of gears, the Sutherland threw all three of its quarries to the ground, sweeping out the legs of the one on the far left and wheeling into the gap, where it lodged one Sutherland on each shoulder and drove them to the ground, falling on top and rolling off. Suzaku was impressed by the way he used their own momentum and the fact that he dared swing the cockpit block into the enemy's face to knock him away in combination with the kick.

"_Come on, you pure-blooded Britannians!" _he bellowed. _"Is this all you can do?" _The tonfa slapped the Factosphere of the first downed Sutherland into smithereens, and a fast jab into a knee joint severed the limb. Metal fragments popped out everywhere, prompting Suzaku to cover Euphemia with his body as shrapnel rained down from over their cover.

"Your Highness, let's get out of here!" he yelled over the sound of clashing metal.

"No!" she returned, cheeks flushed. "This is stupid. I have to stop it!"

"You can't, Princess, it's too dangerous!" he protested, trying to pull her away. She slapped him away and ran out into the open, waving her arms.

"Stop this at once!" she yelled. "I, Euphemia li Britannia, command you to—"

Kicked in the chest by Jeremiah's Sutherland, a Knightmare toppled over, rolling right into Euphemia's path as Jeremiah roared in surprise. Euphemia looked up, her eyes going wide, as the sun became blocked out.

**End Stage X**


	11. The End of a Dream is Reality

Code Evangelion

_An infinite black void expanded throughout the universe. Jumbled thoughts were the stars, the galaxies and the worlds. The countless worlds of countless people, all of whom looked alike…_

_Father_

_I killed you_

_I had to; it was for the best. I'm sorry…_

_It hurt him to think, and now there was a dull pain in his legs. Something warm covered his hands. Blood; his father's blood, but it wasn't wet at all. It was dry, soft and warm. Someone's hands; a girl's hands_

_A girl's voice, presumably belonging to the owner of the hand, came into his dreams._

"_Suzaku…Suzaku…"_

_I'm here. I'm going to be here. I'm not going to go._

**Stage XI-A: The End of a Dream is Reality**

Light was everywhere, filling a chasm of white space with its unendurable brilliance, casting shadow into the oblivion from whence it came. The most intense point of light, its source, rolled across the universe like a sun caught in the inexorable grip of a singularity. Suzaku Kururugi blinked, and then blinked again. The light extinguished, leaving only the dull purple afterimage burned into his retina. He blinked some more. A barely distinguishable figure bowed to another barely distinguishable figure, someone sitting at the edge of his bed, a woman with long pink tresses reaching to the small of her back. The first figure, a doctor, disappeared from the scene, leaving Suzaku and the woman alone in the room. Immediately, she flew to his side, seeing that he was conscious. He blinked a fourth time. She was holding his hand in considerable agitation. His senses returning, he recognized Princess Euphemia fairly sobbing over his bed.

"Wha—your Highness, what are you—" he tried to sit up, and a lightning bolt of pain shot through his waist, which felt oddly light. Euphemia rushed to hold him down.

"Don't move, Suzaku," she warned. "Lie down, okay?"

"Yea, ma'am, but what happened?" he asked groggily. There had been a chase, a fight, and she had run out to stop the fight. The memories quit eluding capture, and remembrance returned. Euphemia was about to be crushed under a Sutherland, and he had tackled her across the waist, sending the slight girl flying. The Sutherland came down; there was a moment of pure pain, and then nothing. It seemed to have saved her, but what of him?

Euphemia ran a hand through his hair, with the pursed lips of someone about to burst into tears. He forced a smile. While trying to move his legs, he noticed something missing. She lowered her head, dismayed.

"Suzaku, your legs…"

He already knew. He had seen the cockpit block on top of his lower leg just before he passed out.

"I'm sorry, Suzaku, it's all because of me…"

He struggled to get up again, denying her guilt.

"It's not your fault, your Highness," he said shakily. "I, I'll be alright."

"NO, YOU WON'T BE!" she yelled. "They…they had to amputate you below the knees…you _have_ no legs now." Tears ran openly down her cheeks. "And it's because I was so foolish…"

A curt knock came at the door, and a soldier stepped in. He bowed to Euphemia and walked to Suzaku.

"Madam, excuse me," he said officiously. Then, turning to Suzaku, he saluted. "Major Suzaku Kururugi, I am Cpt. Joshua Miller of the Military Discharge Office. Due to the grievous nature of your injury, sustained in service to the Empire, you have been honorably discharged with a two-rank promotion and a commendation from His Royal Highness, Second Prince Schnizel himself. The Empire gratefully acknowledges your service. Also, you are being reviewed for an Imperial Cross of Outstanding Service beyond the Call of Duty. Here are your documents. Have a good day, Colonel."

He saluted again, paused, and a confused Suzaku returned the salute. The captain turned, clicked his heel and marched out.

"Small recompense," Euphemia whispered. "What good are a promotion and an Imperial Cross anyway?" Her hand clutched his tightly, and to her surprise, he returned to squeeze.

"Your Highness, please don't worry about me," he said softly. Outside, a small shower began to cover the city with little tear-like raindrops. Euphemia wiped her eyes, still sad.

"Thank you, Suzaku," she said, her composure returning to her. Outside, the summer shower abated as soon as it started. "What are you going to do now? Are you really going to just…retire?"

He shook his head. His mission was not over. The Numbers still lived as sub-humans, and the power of the aristocracy still sat over their heads. He must prove to Zero that Britannia need not be destroyed, that it can be changed from within.

Euphemia said, "I can find you a comfortable home anywhere you want. You can live pretty comfortably on your pension. I can get someone to take care of you, and—"

"No," he said. "I can't go. Not yet."

She sighed.

"I thought you'd say that," she said. "But what can you do with no—oh, I'm sorry."

A damned good question; what _would_ he do with no legs? The Lancelot is closed to him now. He can't enter politics or have a career in the corporate world because he was born an Eleven. The most he could lean on is the gratitude of a sixteen-year old girl, who was liable to forget him as soon as the shock of the situation wore off. It seemed that all he can do now is to decay.

The rain started once again.

XXXXX

_Avalon_

Asuka admired the creamy white-and-gold finish of the Lancelot. Its aesthetics were a perfect balance, and its mechanics a masterpiece. Many of the technologies incorporated in her Evangelion. Her custom Gloucester was lost, and something like this would be a perfect replacement. Of course, the seat had already been taken by a highly capable pilot, and she has her Evangelion.

Earl Asplund walked into view, proudly enjoying the impressed look on Asuka's face.

"Lady Langley, how do you like the Lancelot?" he asked.

"Excellent machine," she said. "Covers both long and short range, and has strong defenses. I understand that you've put in extra features after it was damaged in the first battle against an Angel?"

"Yes, we have," he said happily. "I've, uh, convinced Lord Tabris' engineers to release data on the Gawain's float system, and we've installed that on the Lancelot." He scratched his head. "The actual machinery has yet to be completed, of course, but once it is, the Lancelot—the Lancelot AIR Cavalry, to be exact—will have the ability to fly independent of a carrier. Of course, the energy usage would be quite high…"

A Knightmare with the ability to fly, combined with superb agility, highly destructive ranged weaponry and a built-in energy shield sounded quite good enough. Spare energy fillers can be carried, pure power cannot. Besides, she could not bust out an Eva for every little operation, and a Sutherland was…lacking.

"Earl, how classified are the files for this?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm sure you're cleared," he said absentmindedly. "I don't really know if we have the resources to build another one like it for you, though." Asuka bristled at the rudeness of his guessing her thoughts. What a man, obsessed with machines more than he cared for humans. It took such maniacal devotion to create the likes of the Lancelot.

"In which case, I would like to look them over, if that is alright," she said curtly. He clapped his hands in delight.

"Of course, milady!" he cried. "But of course, this is still classified material; so, please…keep it as such." He flushed, and Asuka smirked. He has enough human left in him to be jealous.

"As you wish," she said.

XXXXX

"Well, damn," Lelouch said. He rubbed his face exasperatedly. "I was hoping to place a Geass on Suzaku. There's not much need for it now, I suppose."

He plunged his face into a basin of water.

"At least Nunnally's got a playmate with less leg than herself," he commented insensitively. C.C. munched on a particularly tasty mushroom-and-sausage pizza, regarding Lelouch with dispassion.

"You've been light on the Geass lately," she said. "What's up with that?"

"No reason to Geass people," he said. "The fights among humans have all but ceased. The Black Knights' military capacity is expanding exponentially with help from the Chinese Federation and the Militarized Zone of India, all of whom would love to see us turn the tables on Britannia the moment the Angels are vanquished. Honestly, I feel as if I can take a little break."

"Don't get caught off-guard," she said lazily.

"I won't," he said. "Everything has been set up…thanks to that woman, Rakshata Chawla's excellent work. The Radiant Wave Surge capsules look very…enticing."

"You seem eager to avoid using Geass," she observed.

"I still don't understand many of its effects," he replied grimly. He did not tell her about how Shirley had called him frantically, saying that a creepy Chinese man was following her talking about him and reading her thoughts. He had strange ear muffs and was claiming the Lelouch was Zero. She had sprayed him with a can of pepper spray—good girl, Lelouch thought—and he had dropped the goggle-like thing he was wearing over his eyes. What really scared her was the fact that his eyes had red Vs inside them. They glowed. She freaked out and ran. Another Geass user was in the Area, with the specific ability to read minds. Lelouch didn't know how far his abilities extended, whether or not it could be focused or if it's even geared to be turned off. Otherwise, why would he wear oversized earmuffs? Lelouch would go mad, too, if he had to listen to every single thought coming from a crowd. He may be paranoid, but if Geass becomes stuck in activated mode, he wanted to avoid it.

"Is there something on your mind?" C.C. asked.

"No," he replied. "I'm going out. You can order more pizza if you want, but don't leave a mess."

Outside, soft music was pouring in through the half-open door to Ikari's room. Lelouch paused and looked inside. The boy was playing a battered old cello that was in surprisingly good condition. The dreamy, vague and strange sounds identified themselves as Debussy's _Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_. Nunnally was asleep in her wheelchair, with Sayoko seated nearby. Nunnally's head leaned very closely to Shinji's shoulder. Nodding, Lelouch left the trio alone to enjoy Ikari's playing. It was quite good, considering the dilapidated state of the cello.

He was not the only one listening in from concealment. Outside, Asuka Soryu pulled her wide-brimmed bonnet lower over her head. Listening in through an open window, she was secretly impressed. The recent events had been highly distressing, what with Kururugi being crippled and the Purists thrown into disarray over the near death of Princess Euphemia. That fool Gottwald had let his sense of honor get in the way of his brains again. She was grateful for his defense, but thought it idiotic. He was probably going to run back gushing about his failure and undeserving weakness to her, and she would have to scold some sense into him. On top of that, there were the Purists to wreck…oh, the burdens of everyday cares. She had already slipped Suzaku's information to the media, supplementing a crush of evidence against the belief that Purism can help the Empire. There were charges to be levied and important figures to topple from grace. Princess Euphemia is a popular young woman, even with the Numbers.

'_You can take them all down in good time, Asuka. You're better than them,' _she reminded herself. _'Remember what you promised to Mama.'_

She clenched her fist. Ikari's soothing music flowed over her mind, washing away her agitation. Leaning against a tree, she tried to simply enjoy the dreamy tones of the _Prelude_.

"Quite talented, isn't he?"

Asuka jumped with a little shriek as Tabris von Stuhl, Knight of One, appeared behind her with a charming smile and a bow. Flustered, she dropped to one knee.

"Lord Tabris, pardon me for not noticing you," she said. The silver-haired young man laughed graciously and helped her to her feet.

"My dear Asuka, how _are_ you?" he inquired. Leading her by the hand, he brought her to a bench, where, though uncomfortable, she sat down with him. The Knight of One was as young as she was, tall, skinny and handsome, with pale albino skin and silver hair. A curiously shaped, pale red scar ran down the length of his face, from his forehead, through a gilt-silver black patch over his left eye and to his chin. Thoroughly leaned back, he received all formalities with bemused scorn. The smile was better than any poker face, keeping Asuka on her toes guessing the man with little success. Having gone through their small chat and inquiries, Tabris turned down his merry expression.

"It is an absolute disgrace that one of Britannia's top aces was rendered disabled for life by a petty brawl, better suited for a bar!" he said. "As of my arrival, I have been ordered to join the Nerv taskforce as an observer and field command officer. The Lancelot is too potent a weapon to be left without a master, and I am tied down to the Gawain, so I am naming you the pilot, when such duties do not coincide with combat in the Evangelion. Understand?"

Asuka looked at him in astonishment, nodding slowly.

"As you wish, my lord," she replied with reasonable composure. Tabris planted his usual easy carelessness back onto his face with a sigh.

"I'm sorry to burden you with so much work, but it is difficult finding talented pilots in a hurry," he said. "You're the best we have."

"It is not a problem, my lord," she replied warmly, a flush spreading over her cheeks at the compliment. They both rose, and Tabris bent to gently, almost playfully, kiss her hand.

"Well, my dear, I must leave you now," he said. "Perhaps we can arrange some meeting later on, when both of us are not loaded down with work?" Asuka's flush deepened, and a smile etched its way from the corners of her lips.

"Of course," she said. "G-good day, Lord Tabris" The latter waved, ducked into a nondescript car, and disappeared into the crowded streets, leaving the girl to flex her fingers, enchanted still, pleasure written all over her features. Looking back, Tabris sighed to himself. She wore her heart on her sleeves. Perhaps it wasn't so obvious to the average man, but she was a natural pawn for the right man to play. A little sadly, he turned up a soft tune and closed his eyes.

XXXXX

Nerv, Commander's Office

"…_as for that matter, it's already been taken care of,"_ the man on the other end said. Gendo smiled to nobody in particular as he held the telephone to his ear.

"Thank you. I owe you one, once again," he said.

"_You're not going to pay me back, are you?"_

Smirking, Gendo hung up. Outside, the GeoFront darkened as the sun set.

XXXXX

"Is Misato gone?" Shinji asked.

"Correct," Rei replied as the pair walked down to the three simulation plugs where synch tests were conducted. Langley was already there, leaving from a private dressing room. She was always aloof, though Shinji would have liked to know her better.

"So, who's in command?"

"The Knight of One, Lord Tabris von Stuhl, will supervise operations in case Captain Katsuragi is absent."

"Wait, another Knight of the Round is here?" he asked in confusion.

"Area Eleven has become a focal point of world attention," Rei said. "Overseers of proper rank must be present."

The final bulkhead slid open, revealing the openings of the Plugs. As she left for her Plug, Shinji noted the complete dispassion of her expression, even more cold and removed than usual.

"Rei—Ayanami, why do you pilot this thing?" he asked on impulse.

"Why do you ask?"

"Um, well, you don't look happy, that's all," he said haltingly. "You never look happy."

"Perhaps I never _am_ happy," she said, before stepping into the Plug and disappearing.

'_Perhaps I never am happy,'_ Shinji reflected in his own seat. What a melancholy existence hers must be. He tried to lift his own often-low spirits, but found that it wasn't potent enough. Was he ever happy?

He didn't think so either.

XXXXX

From his screen, Tabris gave the young Eleven a few curious glances. From the beginning the boy had shown himself to be unstable, weak and constantly looking for support, much like the Knight of Two. And like the girl, he would be no problem at all to use as Tabris pleased. The other "Eleven" was more intriguing. Though he had beheld many Britannians, Elevens and bastards of every conceivable proportion, he found it neigh impossible to pinpoint the exact parentage of Rei Ayanami—Aldington, he should say. If he were out of his wits, he would almost say that she was as he is. Of course, Tabris von Stuhl possesses an excellent wit, and does not see the final option as even a remote possibility. He was the only one like himself. It defied all logic to think otherwise. Still, Aldington was a potential danger.

"Sir?" a technician asked. Tabris nodded and said, "Commence the test, if you please."

The engines buried within Nerv's walls hummed to life, plunging the three Plugs into a pool of red liquid.

"Plugs descending. Pilot neural links are stable. 5 seconds to contamination zone. The Second—um…Lady Langley is currently in the lead."

Tabris' phone rang besides him. At the same time, Nerv's alarms rang. As he listened, Tabris' face grew serious.

"Abort test!" he ordered. "Prepare all Evangelions for sortie. Contact Princess Claudia and mobilize the Third Battalion. Pilots, you will receive your orders upon boarding."

XXXXX

"Nina, snap out of it!" a colleague said. Nina Einstein did not. Tremors seized her body as she whimpered in horror.

"They're gonna die," she whispered. "They're all gonna die because I messed up."

She broke into a fit of crying interrupted only by the sound of Jet Alone's fading footsteps. The massive machine build by Britannian Eastern Industries was the first ever field test of a uranium-fueled nuclear reactor, developed by Nina with BEI funding to power the land-based combat weapon Jet Alone. They intended it to replace Evangelions in the fight against Angels. Nina thought it absurd to suppose that the clumsy pile of metal could rival the smooth, fluid agility of Evas, but she needed major funding to back her project. Now it was coming back to haunt her.

Upon activation, Jet Alone had seemed fine, taking steps as commanded. But when a stop was ordered, it did not obey. Instead, it picked up speed, trampled through the VIPs' viewing room and ran off into the distance. All controls failed, all communication between the command center and JA ceased, and the reactor began overheating. In another twenty minutes, it would crash into the edge of the Tokyo Settlement and extinguish the city in a massive nuclear fireball.

"Somebody…somebody help," she implored.

'_And what if no help arrives, huh?'_ a little voice in the back of her head scolded. _'What use are you anyway, sitting here crying? _You're_ the lead scientist. _You_ made the reactor. It's _your_ responsibility!'_

"No…more crying," she told herself. "You're so...useless…get up and _move_!"

A sonic boom threw her against an overturned table. The hapless girl flipped over the furniture and scraped over a stretch of unwelcomingly rough concrete. Looking up, she could just see the tail exhaust of a large Nerv transport racing after the JA. Help was on the way.

Someone held her up by the arm, and she dusted off the front of her tattered evening gown. Having calmed down a bit, she raced over to the nearest terminal.

"Reactor heat levels are 65% to critical level," she read. "Estimated fifteen minutes to maximum tolerance level. That means it's going to be hot as it hits the Settlement."

She jerked upwards.

"Is the Britannian army deploying?" she yelled.

"The Third Mobile Infantry Battalion is approaching in front of Jet Alone," a man with a phone called back. "And Nerv sent out an Evangelion. That crazy Eleven thinks she can singlehandedly stop the JA!"

"Idiot," Nina said. She'll surely die. Resigning the Eleven to her fate, she resumed trying to hack back into her own system. The backdoor entry she had devised was missing, for some reason. So was the standard gateway. The scary part was that the backdoor had been hidden in a small subsection of the safety programming, and since she could not even find the markers left on the backdoor, there could only be one answer:

Sabotage

Incensed, furious and horrified, Nina failed to notice a small bleeping dot on the edge of a small monitor on an overturned laptop beneath her feet.

**End Stage XI**


	12. False Miracles

Code Evangelion

**Stage XII: False Miracles**

"Jet Alone sighted," Hyuga reported.

"Shinji, are you ready?" Misato asked.

"Y-yes, ma'am," he said. "Now releasing docking clamps"

"Evangelion away," Hyuga said. "Withdrawing as planned"

The massive transport banked away and steered clear of the potential blast zone as Eva Unit 01 began its chase after the running JA. The soft, muddy earth of the bombed-out city clung to Eva's feet, dragging her down with the sheer low quality of the ground. Fortunately, their quarry was even less agile on this land. A hand latched onto a handle on the back of JA, and Shinji grunted as he planted Unit 01's leg into the dirt. The mixture was dug up by the ton as the two machines struggled against each other. Gingerly, Unit 01's hand, holding Misato between two fingers, came into contact with JA's back control unit. Even through the Eva, Shinji felt the thrumming heat, and he flinched. With a cry, Misato plummeted, the visor of her protective suit flashing in the sun. Flailing, she caught onto a rung of a service ladder, and Shinji sighed in relief.

"Careful," he said. Misato smiled and gave him a victorious hand sign.

"_Ikari!"_

Shinji jerked up in surprise at a second transport that came over the horizon, Unit 02 in tow.

"_Captain Katsuragi, withdraw!"_ Langley ordered. _"There is an Angel incoming from the east!"_

"_An Angel attacks now, of all times?"_ Misato exclaimed. She was already inside the JA. _"Lady Langley, let me shut down this thing, at least! I have the password. I can—"_

"_Make it quick!" _Langley said. _"Ikari, emergency external batteries will be delivered. Back me up the moment this is finished!"_

The plane passing overhead became irrelevant as Misato as soon as her ID card slid through a scanner guarding the door of JA's inner control room.

"I've found it," she whispered to herself. The inside was a sinister red, with a computer terminal standing amidst dark black columns, control rods for the reactor, or so she was told. She eyed them warily. They would have to be manually pushed if reset of the system fails, and they looked heavy. Another swipe gained her access to the computer terminal. Blocks of text flowed through the screen, and, finding the sections to be deleted, Misato entered the odd password, "hope".

Hope failed.

"What the hell?" she muttered. Hope failed many times more. She cursed and slammed the table. Someone must have altered the program. No choice now; the massive monoliths were incredibly heavy, and she barely felt any movement, even when her whole weight was thrown against one.

"Move, damn it!" she yelled. Bile rose in her throat, from both exhaustion and fear. Her hands protested against the hardness of the rod, and they barely inched forwards. Alarms began to ring, and the room became unbearably hot. The reactor was about to go.

"_Misato, get out of there!"_ Shinji screamed in her ear.

"Too—late—for—that—" she grunted. "Won't—get—out—in—time. Don't worry—A.T. Field—protecting—you—"

"_I don't care!"_ he yelled. _"You—you're the one caught in there!"_

"Too—bad—for—me!" she replied. With a light electronic buzz, the computer's screen turned light green, and Misato fell onto her face as the rods retracted automatically. In amazement, she saw as the lights turned green, the buzz of the engine died down, and JA went silent.

Shinji stared at the dying machine, amazed by the miraculous recovery. Overhead, a Nerv helicopter dove down with two pylon-mounted batteries.

"_Misato! You're alive! You did it! It's—it's a miracle!"_ Shinji squealed.

"Yea…" she murmured. "But the miracle…was set up by someone else."

Wearily, Misato looked up into the ceiling.

"Go, Shinji," she said. "You're needed."

XXXXX

"_Target has passed the last line of defense,"_ a surveillance station reported. _"Now approaching final interception point"_

"_Jet Alone has been neutralized. Evangelion Unit 01 due to arrive in T-Minus 300 seconds"_

"Understood," Asuka said. "Prepare an Umbilical Cable and weapon for Unit 01; ETA of target?"

"_T-Minus 200 seconds"_

"All units will launch an attack at T-Minus 30 seconds. Unit 01 will receive its equipment and immediately attack the target. Deploy in standard interception formation!"

The air across from them rippled, and a three-pronged Angel dove out of the sky.

"Weapons free!" Asuka snarled. She ran forwards, threw her arm back, and threw the MV Lance in Unit 02's hand, as if she was Achilles, and grabbed a pair of assault rifles off of a rack. A boost from her A.T. Field and she was in the air, pummeling the Angel with the guns, in synch with the thundering fire coming from the Britannian army. The lance was helped along by a triplet of jets mounted on its shaft and as such failed to fall off, caught instead on the Angel's A.T. Field. Asuka roared and lashed out with Unit 02's foot, the heel clicking against the end of the shaft. The A.T. Field burst into radiant octagons that crumpled, driven back by the tip of the lance. The Field, battered by Unit 02's own, gave way, and with another shout from Asuka, the Lance pierced the entire Angel, splitting it neatly into halves.

"There!" she cried. "Well, so much for Ikari's follow-up attack!"

She popped the lance out of the ground, where it had buried itself. The mass of Angelic flesh quivered, and an ominous gurgling came from its depth. The two halves suddenly blossomed and became two identical copies of the Angel she had just killed.

"What-what the hell?" she gasped.

"_Eva Unit 01 has arrived!"_

The pair of Angels made a grab for Unit 02 with sharp-looking claws. Lashing out with the lance, she took off half of one's arm, which instantly regenerated. A twirl and slam of the lance's shaft into the other one's Core produced no tangible result, as it healed the moment that the lance exited. The Angel's face consisted of three holes mounted on a circular plate. These three glowed on both the Angels, and Asuka reeled back seconds later with her Blaze Luminous shield generator a smoking mess. Her forearm was awash with the burning sensation left by the beams, paralyzed and uselessly dangling at her side. Strings of explosions came out of nowhere, raking the Angels' backs. A Sutherland was sailing through the air with a par of rifle-mounted grenade launchers, its pilot roaring bloody curses at the Angels as the Sutherland fell on one, fired at it, rolled off and latched onto the other's back.

"Jeremiah Gottwald, you goddamn idiot!" Asuka exclaimed. He had bought her time, with which she sliced through both Angels at the waist, aiming to kill both Cores with one stroke. They moved in synchronized motion, sliding up and evading the MV Lance's tip. As to be expected, the duo regenerated as one, spun and kicked Unit 02 across the chest, sending her flying. The Sutherland had sunk ignominiously into a particularly wet piece of ground, and was stuck while Gottwald kept up his stream of fanatical declarations. Groaning, Asuka saw that her Umbilical Cable was broken, and that the two Angels had already engaged Unit 01. It was fighting like a desperate, drowning man, barely countering the coordinated attacks of the two Angels. He had picked an assault rifle, which became useless in close range, and was relying on the MV Knife. He could not use it at all, only blindly lunging at the dancing Angels. From behind, Asuka charged, knocking one of the Angels apart from its partner. Both of the Angels reacted in the exact same way, opening up to the left, shoving with their right "arms" and jumping the same height. The sun glinted off of Unit 02's MV Knife, having slid through the length of the Angel and barely missed the Core. While this one was dodging, Unit 01's knife cut into the Core of the other.

Two Angels, born of the same cloven Angel, with the same features, acting as a coordinated whole

Asuka saw an opportunity.

The Angel engaged with Unit 01 twisted underneath the Eva and struck up, decking Unit 01 across the jaw. The attempt to do the same to Unit 02 hit only empty air, while Unit 02, now on the side of the Angel, ripped the Core open with her Harkens. A triad of beams hit the Eva's back, narrowly missing the Entry Plug but destroying the energy filler inside. With an electronic whine, Unit 02 shut down.

XXXXX

The staring contest between the ceiling and Shinji ended with Shinji losing. He lost repeatedly in the next few seconds, trying to clear away his eyes. He was in a hospital again, presumably the Nerv one, alone in the bed.

'_What happened?'_

The Angel

He had suddenly found both Angels attacking him, and had been easily overwhelmed. Turning to run also failed miserably. Unit 01 was left disabled a quarter kilometer from the site of the battle. Langley had probably been neutralized, too, or else both Angels wouldn't have been able to gang up on him. He scratched his head. A small meal had been left out for him, with a note tucked beneath the cutlery.

_Proceed at once to the Britannian Government Bureau with the attached ID once you are medically cleared to leave. You will be directed to the office of the Knight of Two once there._

It was signed by Misato and stamped with the winged seal of the Knights of One and Two, as well as bearing the official Nerv letterhead. Attached was a cream-and-gold ID card with his name, mug shot and hologram of authentication. There was a small piece of paper taped to the back of the card.

_Further failure will not be tolerated._

The signature was small but pronouncedly sharp. The letter endings disappeared gracefully into the page when the pen's tip lifted off the surface. He traced over Langley's words, all written in the same neat, elegant script. What did he feel? Disappointment, certainly; disappointed to have lost the battle, but it seems that he is at least a little sad to have failed to meet Langley's expectations. He hadn't done enough, he was sure. She had been handling the Angels extremely well. It was his weakness that led to the embarrassing loss, and she was angry at him.

'_Why do you care?'_

It felt nauseating to feel her anger, even when received by proxy.

He dug into his food. Whether or not she was angry, he could do nothing about it. He was never able to do anything about any situation. The clock ticked by slowly. A doctor and a nurse eventually came and checked him out of the hospital with suspicious rapidity, and he was on his way. Everything was neatly arranged, with a car to ferry him into the heart of the Bureau, a skipped security check and a soldier readily admitting him into the office.

Langley had her back to him, talking to a silver haired young man a little older than Shinji himself and a staggeringly tall, handsomely enrobed blond man. Shinji gaped as the younger man tapped Langley on the forearm and directed all three's gazes at Shinji. The older man, he recognized, was Second Prince and Prime Minister Schnizel el Britannia. Schnizel smiled.

"Well, hello, Shinji Ikari. We've been waiting for you. How do you feel?"

"Ah, f—fine, um…your Highness," he mumbled. Schnizel motioned for all of them to take a seat. Once seated, his countenance darkened.

"One and a half divisions lost, two Evangelions badly damaged, and a barely recovering sector of the old Tokyo area had to be completely leveled with an N2 warhead. On top of that, we've television cameras recording an Evangelion fleeing the battle while the Army and even terrorists stood their ground!"

Shinji shivered under the man's iron gaze.

"It's a complete fiasco," he continued. "An embarrassment" A slightly softer glance was conveyed to Langley, who had probably already borne the brunt of the chastisement set aside for her. Her blue eyes had none of their usual sparkle, and their anger burned him with their intensity. Schnizel sighed.

"Lady Langley, Mr. Ikari, the two of you must work together. Lady Langley had observed the inherent synchrony of the two Angels. If we were to defeat them, then they must be separated and killed together, at the same time. I'll leave to her the technicalities of the matter, but know that however you kill the Angel…Angels, it must be spectacular enough to outweigh the effects of the previous battle. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, your Highness," Langley said with practiced speed and tone. She turned to Shinji.

"As his Highness said, the Angel can only be destroyed by a coordinated, simultaneous attack on both of the Cores. We will have 62 seconds before your Eva's battery runs out. I will be able to continue fighting, but it would be useless if you were neutralized mid-battle, and an upgrade to a full Sakuradite system is out of the question. It'll take months to revamp Unit 01's whole set of electronics. We have six days."

She took out a sheaf of paper and a small music player, and handed both to Shinji.

"We've laid out the battle plan according to this soundtrack. You will memorize this tonight. Tomorrow, you will be picked up from Ashford and delivered to live with me for the remaining five days. Do not disappoint me. Dismissed"

Shinji stood, bowed awkwardly, and left. The young man rose behind him, quietly excused himself and followed Shinji out. Once out of earshot, he placed a hand on Shinji's shoulder.

"Mr. Ikari," he said pleasantly. "May I introduce myself? I am Tabris von Stuhl, the Knight of One."

He shook hands with Shinji, as if he were a peer. The two took a stroll out onto the rooftop gardens of the Bureau, von Stuhl's mere presence granting them full access. He looked nervously at von Stuhl, who winked.

"Distinctions of parentage hardly matter once the guns start blazing, Mr. Ikari," he said. "As a soldier, I tend to look down upon these silly things."

"I…is that so?"

He wanted to ask if that was a view shared by others, but did not dare open his mouth. Von Stuhl apparently did not mind.

"It isn't a shared view, of course," he continued. "Your comrade-in-arms, Lady Langley, for example, embraces her nobility quite fiercely, partial as it is."

Shinji's heart skipped a beat. Langley was anti-Eleven?

"It doesn't…seem right," he said. "She doesn't act that way…"

Von Stuhl laughed, patting Shinji on the shoulder.

"She's also smart, Mr. Ikari. Very smart," he said. "Many people have assumed otherwise, and suffered for it."

He looked at his watch.

"But I'm needed somewhere else at the moment," he said. "I will escort you out."

Despite von Stuhl's best efforts at diplomacy, Shinji's spirits refused to lift. Langley is a racist? It was inconceivable, what with the carefree way she's acted around him. He would almost say she was a little charming.

"_Very smart…"_

He is the Third Child, the prodigy pilot, the boy who operated an Evangelion and defeated an Angel with no prior training. At his fingertips is the greatest of humanity's weapons. Why would she not try to befriend and manipulate—perhaps even try to seduce him?

His own thoughts alarmed him. The pride it held—was it all unlocked by von Stuhl's simple words? It was exhilarating to realize one's power.

'_What's going on?'_

Without thinking, he bumped into a pair of Britannian boys.

"Hey, watch where you're going, you damn Eleven!" one yelled, slapping him across the face. Reflexively, he struck back, delivering a solid punch to the boy's sternum. With a puff of escaped air, he crumpled to the ground.

"What—just who the hell do you think you are?" his friend exclaimed. "You just hit the son of a Viscount! You should be groveling for mercy, you fucking insect!"

Shinji had the same feeling he had in class, that of pure, unadulterated rage fueled by the knowledge that he was known and valued by two Knights of the Round and the Second Prince. He socked the boy in the face. Paramilitary training was pure usefulness.

XXXXX

Kaji Ryoji rarely had a moment of true rest. With his mistress fully devoted to destroying the Angel, he and Gottwald were left to complete all of her work. Business, holdings and administrative paper-shuffling were no problem, but occasionally a difficult situation popped up.

"Two firstborn sons of high-ranking Court nobles, one nose shattered, three black eyes, a few teeth here and there before Nerv security got in," he commented. "Our boy has more fight in him than we'd imagined."

"It's a shame he couldn't put all that to better use," Gottwald complained. "Those boys were not rightful targets, though I must commend his courage."

"Courage or not, quite a few high-up people are howling for his blood. Nerv can pay for the dental and reconstruction work, but money hardly matters here."

"He'll be out of sight for a while," Gottwald replied. "Living…ugh…"

"Are you afraid that he'll take liberties with Lady Langley?" Kaji asked with a bemused look. "Does any man alive dare? Remember the broken back of Area 18's former defenses, and who dealt the killing blow!"

Gottwald sulkily stamped a paper, stuffing it into an envelope and sealing it with equal dissatisfaction. Kaji found his laptop and began tapping out communications to important contacts inside the Court. This was going to take a lot of work to smooth over. Meanwhile, Ikari just has to keep his head low and live quietly in Asuka's country home.

Leaning away from Gottwald, Kaji indulged in his own moment of doubt. Asuka will be doing everything alone with regards to working on the attack. They were not to be disturbed, she had ordered, because she and Ikari were to work up to fourteen hours a day with few breaks. No servant stayed with them, and certainly no guards observed the girl. It made Kaji's practical mind flinch to think of the rumors that were bound to start flying. He tapped the background of the laptop, a young woman in a lab coat set against elaborate wall decorations, carrying a small baby in her arms, and a boy hanging off her arm. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the happy scene. Things change in the blink of an eye.

Glumly, he pulled his work back up and hiding the background. Jeremiah Gottwald turned his eyes away from their prying, discreetly noting a shade of difference in the skins of baby and mother.

**End Stage XII**


	13. Now, Let's Dance!

Code Evangelion

**Stage XIII: Now, Let's Dance!**

The buzzer crackled again.

Shinji dropped to the ground, exhausted and giving up. It has been two days, and he was still lagging dozens of percentage points behind Langley's speed. She, for her part, was rightfully worried and annoyed.

"Get up!" she barked. When he failed to do so, and sat looking down at his feet, she left him in disgust. With a heavy heart, he looked at the flashing error messages on the two machines on which they practiced. She had been completely cold to him. Von Stuhl's message sat in his mind like a bothersome stone lodged in one's shoe. Now that he looked at it from a different angle, all that she did wasn't so innocent and friendly any more.

She returned with, to his surprise, a tray of tea and towels. Confused, he leapt to his feet.

"Sit," she ordered, putting the tray down on a table and throwing him a towel. They sat across from one another, she glaring at him and him trying to avoid her look. Finally, after several minutes of this cat-and-mouse game, she set down her tea cup.

"You're not on my level," she stated. "This may be understandable, but it's intolerable."

He fidgeted. What did she want him to do about it?

"I need to lower my own performance to match yours," she continued with a frustrated edge in her voice. "But I can't feel how you move."

A little confused, he nodded blindly. She took a final sip.

"Do you dance, Ikari?"

XXXXX

Ohgi entered Zero's study with a stack of papers.

"All preparations have been completed," he said. "The Radiant Wave Surge Capsules have all been finished, and sleepers planted."

"Good, good," Zero said absentmindedly. "Now we must wait." The wait was going to be long, however. Mao was proving to be a difficult quarry, and he was using Shirley to bait the man around the Tokyo Settlement in an effort to distract the mind-reader. He was not easily fooled, but Shirley knew next to nothing, so Mao could only trail around. Fingering through the papers delivered by Ohgi, he came across a general alert for Nerv's battle plan. The final point of destruction, as well as a massive bombardment, was centered on a little-inhabited hill just outside city perimeters. There was also a small Shinto shrine, he remembered, around that area, well within the blast zone of an anti-Angel bombardment. It was reasonable to think that if he was anywhere nearby, the pest would be incinerated in seconds. Lelouch was himself on an ostensive trip in the Homeland, and had no definite return date, which was making Shirley feel a little lonely.

He pulled out his cell phone and, making sure that Ohgi was leaving, began to dial.

XXXXX

It was ridiculous

Shinji scratched at his embroidered suit. Soft music droned like so many irritating bees. Amidst all the urgent preparations for battle, she wanted to dance?

"Ikari," she said, approaching from behind in a plush silk dress with a long—almost unnecessarily long—train. The gleaming water silk was light and multilayered, using many thin sheets to cloud rather than block out the more savory parts of her physique. Wordlessly, she came close to him and offered her arm. He gingerly took it, and she put his other hand across the small of her back.

"Follow my steps," she ordered. Starting off with a slow waltz, she took him across the cleared space, while he clumsily mirrored her actions. More than once, he stepped on her foot. The moment they settled into a set pace and synchronized, Asuka raised the speed of the dance, taking him out of his comfort zone forcibly. The silk and equally silky skin under Shinji's hands made his whole body twinge. His beating heart seemingly pushed down the stone von Stuhl had set in place. Langley's face was devoid of all disgust when touching him and letting his hands on her.

"_She's also smart. Very smart"_

And he was woozy just from dancing with her. The amount of control she exerted over him was astonishing. It had been almost fifteen minutes since they started, and he was already sweaty. The suit clung to his body, inflaming his already red face. She had absolute command over his limbs now. He moved how she wanted him to move. The music was racing now, and her feet were flying over the floor, taking his along. His mind became a blur of silk, hair, and perfume. The music stopped abruptly, and he crashed into her, tumbling to the ground. Langley stayed upright effortlessly, re-arranging her dress where he had knocked it out of place.

"Better," she said. "Take a shower and return here in thirty minutes. We'll resume normal training then." With that, she walked—no; with that billowing train, she must've floated back to her quarters in the cottage. His head still spinning, Shinji sat up, numb from the experience.

The reserve he had felt about her was eroding rapidly. He found that he didn't _want_ to believe that she despised his lineage. Von Stuhl's words and Langley's arousing feminine body fought for dominance in his mind and heart.

XXXXX

Euphemia sat across from her brooding sister, twiddling her thumbs nervously. Cornelia coughed and began in a dark tone of voice.

"The debacle involving the recent Angel, you already know," she said. "But now, Langley's daughter is living alone with that boy, supposedly 'training.'"

"Asuka is not that kind of girl, Cornelia," Euphemia cut in angrily. "You can't possibly—"

"I don't care," Cornelia said. "But rumors are already flying around the Court. You know how eager some people are to take down Asuka Langley. If those stories from…these years ago…if they are true, then she may be in deep trouble."

"They can't be!" Euphemia exclaimed. "Why would—why would _he_ do such a thing? It's horrible!"

"Men and power come together to produce dark things," Cornelia said. "How else would an almost anonymous illegitimate daughter rise so fast in the—in _his_ favor?"

"She was extraordinarily talented," Euphemia countered. "And besides, her piloting style almost completely matches that of the late Empress Marianne. It caught his Majesty's eye."

"That's a bit of a far stretch," Cornelia sulked. "Defending her is costing me far more attention than I can spare. Can't you make a visit? The guards there won't keep _you_ out."

Euphemia stood up with an air of contained indignation.

"I will," she said. "Though there's no reason to suspect her. Good day, sister."

Watching her leave, Cornelia heaved a sad sigh.

"You're too naïve, Euphy; way too naïve."

Exiting the office in a fit of anger, she ran right into a solid wall of a man. In her agitated state, she almost tripped over the hem of her dress and fell, the man steadying her tumble.

"Well, hello, Euphy," Schnizel said. With his usual cold bemusement, he bent to kiss her hand.

"Ah, hello—that is, good afternoon, brother," she said. Schnizel frowned.

"What are you so flustered about?" he asked. Open-hearted as always, Euphy broke out into a tirade explaining the peculiar situation of Asuka Langley. Schnizel winced, a pained, knowing look passing over his face. Reputation could mean everything in a court so dominated by so few.

"I've heard," he said. "Go; Cornelia knows what she is talking about. It would be best if you can say that you saw nothing with your own two eyes. In fact, observe a while before showing yourself. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Schnizel," she answered. The man patted her on the shoulders and motioned her off.

"Our business is a dirty one," he said encouragingly. "Take heart. The rumors haven't spread far, and the girl has some powerful support." The last sentence brought a hint of a smile to Euphemia's face as she walked away. Calmly, Schnizel accessed the extent of the damage. True to his words, they were relatively slight. Without solid evidence, a scandal could not be created. Now, if one of the Imperial Consorts took it into her head to frame Langley, as they have much reason to do,—every noble feared a second Marianne—the situation will get much more complex. It wasn't the first time, either, he thought darkly. Two years ago, there had been a time when both the Emperor and Langley's illegitimate daughter had faded from the radar. Ridiculous as it was, people suspected an affair between the fiftyish man and the barely pubescent girl. What Schnizel feared was that the Emperor might really have seen the ghost of Marianne in Langley's daughter, in which case her cohabiting with a random Eleven would cause serious problems.

XXXXX

Three days until the attack

Their synchronization was barely breaking eighty-five. Still, it was much, much better. Twice more, she had told him to learn to "feel" her movements, and twice more he had failed. Despair, once it has taken root, is a difficult thing to dislodge.

Beneath the starry sky, there were almost none of the pollutions of human life. Shinji Ikari wandered aimlessly in a small garden attached to the small house they were training in, wondering whether it would all be in vain. He sat down, holding a small sandwich, not giving much thought to the excellent taste, and wished that somehow, a miracle would happen and everything would be good.

The night was still and stifling, so something should not be shaking the bushes to the right of him. It was too big to be a small animal, and large fauna were virtually nonexistent around the sea after Second Impact. Curious, he poked through a gap in the bush. Langley lay on her back, nursing a tiny, leather-bound album and seemed almost asleep. She still had on her exercise attire, and looked like she just took a stroll to find some private space to reminisce alone. Shinji crept forward, bewitched by the innocent look on her face, moving ever closer until he could almost kiss her…

She turned, and he jumped back. Expecting the harsh reprisal, he shrunk back to his side of the bush. She didn't look at him, instead sitting up and hugging her knees, looking back at the album.

"Ikari," she suddenly said. "What were you doing?"

"N-nothing, ma'am," he stuttered. "I swear, I was only looking—"

"Looking at what?"

Her hands covered the worn leather covers of the book, stuffing it out of sight.

"I'm sorry…"he muttered.

"I don't care," she said. Shinji leaned forwards as she rapidly wiped a tiny tear from her eye. Something nudged at Shinji's heart to say something nice.

"Um, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I'm fine."

"But, you were crying," he insisted bluntly.

"I was not!" she yelled. "Who do you think you are, trying to offer me condolences about things you'll never understand?" She was visibly upset by his words, and he groaned in regret.

"Don't you dare apologize," she snarled. "You have no right to even talk to me like that!"

There. She did know that he was an Eleven and an inferior. His heart sank. She looks about, and seeing that her guards were off somewhere else, gave a little sigh of relief.

"You're not very tactful," she said.

He scratched his head. She was only angry, right? Langley had cooled down from her outburst. Those sparkling blue eyes re-focused on Shinji.

"Three days," she began. "It's all we have. Do you understand the importance of this mission? My life's work rests on it. Go to bed. I need you fresh in the morning. As for what happened here…nothing happened."

"It's not just about you," he blurted without thinking. "It's about all the people that will die if—"

He stopped, noticing his egregious mistake. She turned slowly.

"Well then, all the more reasons to dance like you want to win."

XXXXX

Peace and quiet

The man known as Mao exulted in the empty countryside. Birds and insects had no minds to speak of, and the solitary thoughts of the teenage girl he was tailing were of no bother to him. When he had C.C. with him, they could both move to some place like this, where he would never again be bothered…

'_Wait, isn't this restricted area today?'_ the girl thought. Mao started. She was right. There was a Nerv/Britannian military operation here, and all civilians were told to take shelter; odd place for a boy to meet up with a girlfriend.

A faint thought drifted across the sky, _'Holy God, how could something survive that explosion and grow back in six days?'_

It was a male voice, mixed in with interpretations of commands. Mao gasped as a pair of Nerv VTOLs crashed through the air. The operation had begun. The girl's thoughts exploded in panicked chaos, and he slapped a hand over his ear as numerous minds began chattering. Something _titanic_ buzzed on the edge of his hearing. He looked up in horror as a triangular monstrosity drifted out of the sky. Its mind—its mind was _magnificent_, filled with a deafening chorus of unearthly music. Mao's eyes bulged as he shrieked out the name of the Being. His visor clattered to the ground, meters away from the pool of blood that drained out of the facial orifices of a broken man.

XXXXX

Lelouch willed himself not to pick up his cell. He already knew who the caller is. He must distance himself from such things. They will only hold him back…

"Zero, won't you answer that?" Cornelia asked with suspicion. Across the command center, the two exchanged tense looks. After a moment, Lelouch gave in.

"One moment," he said, retreating to a private space where he took up his cell. Shirley's screams were barely audible over the explosions.

"…_please stay away! Don't come! It's…"_

His blood froze and boiled at the same time. She wasn't asking for help, wasn't angry that he sent her into danger. She was worried that he would be hurt if he tried to meet her.

This was the girl he sent into a death trap to lure a single enemy.

As much as he hated to admit, his eyes watered. The decision to throw Shirley away seemed too logical at the time…yet so dastardly now.

He could not just ask someone to pick her up. A connection cannot be made between him and her.

Her voice had been cut off. Her phone was either damaged or out of service range.

He could afford some chivalry—some humanity—for once, couldn't he?

The door slammed open, and he came striding out.

"Ohgi, proceed as planned; I have to go," he said.

"What business could be more important than this?" Cornelia demanded. Lelouch glared at the woman.

"Very important business," he hissed, storming out of the command center. Cornelia looked confusedly at the tail of his cape. He had just walked out on a vital operation in a rage after a phone call that he refused to answer. Impatience and rashness were not things she thought _Zero_, of all people, would possess. She motioned at a guard, who nodded and discreetly withdrew. Turning back to the battle, her attention returned in time to hear the announcement that the targets were within visual range, and would be entering the attack area within two hundred seconds.

"Hear that?" she roared. "Ikari, you will not fail this time. Lady Langley, good luck."

"Understood," Langley replied. Shinji swallowed in fear. Their synchronization was barely ninety-five percent, despite both of their best efforts.

"_Ikari…Shinji,"_ Langley said quietly over a closed channel. _"Did you know…when I was four, my mother killed herself. She couldn't stand the hatred against her from all the other noble dames who hated her for being in the Duke's favor…wherever I went, children beat me, and nobody helped, because I was a bastard, born out of wedlock and a half-breed…but before she died, my mother made me promise her…promise her that I'd take care of myself. I've honored that promise 'till now."_

Through the screen, she looked forlornly at Shinji.

"_Will you help me? Please?"_

Shinji was left in stunned silence by the sudden ejaculation of deep and personal stories. Her pain was evident in her tone. His throat caught; were that woman's pictures what she had been looking at?

"I will," he messaged her. "I promise, too."

Her face cracked into a bittersweet smile.

"Thank you," she said. "Now, let's dance, shall we?"

He nodded, and she gave him a thumb up.

"_Targets, ETA in twenty seconds," _the bridge operator said crisply.

Asuka shut off the comm.

'_Too easy, just…too easy,'_ she thought. But it hurt her to speak the story, because it was, if only partially, true.

'_Mama, I'm sorry for…no, no I'm not. Why would I be sorry, you bitch? You left…you…'_

"_Evangelions, launch!"_ Misato bellowed. The music began to play.

"_Ma'am, time to go," _Shinji's voice came over the intercom. _"I promised you…okay?"_

Yes, he did, which meant that Asuka Langley, Knight of Two, daughter of the Archduke Langley and an Imperial Field Marshal, could not fail to deliver; not when a measly Eleven could be so strong.

Overhead, the final bulkheads sealing away the Cage sprang open, the launch rails firing into the air. A rush of sunlight engulfed Unit 02, her golden decals and emblems flashing in the sun. The twinkling light played across the gold of her Plug Suit, reminding her of who the hell she really was.

And she was not someone who will lose, even to an Angel.

The two Evas spun in perfect unison, slashing down with MV Blades that sliced the Angel neatly into two halves. Landing on the ground, Asuka wrenched the Eva back into a fighting stance, both Landspinners smacking the ground with a running squeal. The rush of battle sang to her soul, making her feel thousands of times bigger than she was, until she felt the urge to roar like the lioness, flying at her prey with claws extended.

"_Just who the hell…do you think I AM?"_

**End Stage XIII**

A/N: Stupid FFN...why do you remove "?(No space)!" s?


	14. Friends

Code Evangelion

**Stage XIV: Friends**

For a long time, neither he nor the red-haired girl moved. The explosion had subsided. The earth was a molten pot of glowing, hot rock, and the sky a dead, bloody red. The two held each other fast, his hands burying her head in his chest, where she was safe from the worst of the heat and debris. He held her for his own life, as well as hers.

"Lulu, are you alright?"

Her muffled voice broke free of his arms. Having dove on top of her the instant that the Angel was destroyed, he had preserved both of them from the gory destruction of being crushed beneath countless blocks of rock and dirt.

"I'm okay, Shirley," Lelouch said. "Are you?"

She coughed and spat some dirt out of her mouth discreetly, and Lelouch smoothed specks of dust from her hair.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I had to call you here. It was…so damn stupid of me."

"Dummy, Lulu," Shirley said. "How would you know?"

"I…it was restricted for a reason!" he stammered, finding some quick excuse, since he did indeed know. She smiled sadly.

"I thought you called me here so we'd be alone…" she whispered in his ear. The burns on his face and body got hotter. She sat on the ground, leaning into him, her short skirt—silly Ashford; what kind of uniform was this, that only covered the upper calf—lifting slightly as she shuddered. He listened to her recounting the story of the battle, how she had been alerted by explosions and spooked by an unearthly shriek that pierced the entire mountain with its haunting echo. He trembled, too. His eyes had blazed with pain the moment the Angel met its doom. Something about the thing was deeply connected to Geass. If he had read Mao right…he would have ran into the Angels, and if he could not control his Geass, and if he had been forced to listen to the Angel's mind, he may have been overwhelmed.

A lot of ifs

Too many to sacrifice Shirley for

It made him feel like a complete ass, which he probably was.

"Lulu, are you really okay?" she asked, tracing the lines of wounds on his cheek.

"I'm fine," he said. "Don't fret."

The air was suffocating, thick with the miasma of that spectacular explosion. Plus, Lelouch's head was throbbing with pain.

"Let's go home," he urged, not wanting to expose her to any more military secrets paraded around in plain daylight.

"No, wait, Lulu, don't you…have anything to tell me here, where nobody can hear us?" she asked.

"I want you to be safe, Shirley. Now get going!" he said impatiently. "You're in danger here; please."

She nodded with pursed lips. He relented.

"I'll stay with you once we get home. I promise," he said. "I don't want to leave you again."

She smiled dreamily.

"'Kay, Lulu," she told him. "Take me home."

He did not end up having to stay with her for anything. She got home, fell onto her bed and fell into a deep, almost comatose sleep, and did not awaken again, except by her mother to be rushed to the hospital, where she spent the next two days sleeping off the shock of the experience. Lelouch, for his part, was not chewed out nearly as much as he thought he should have been, since he had hurt himself so badly to protect Shirley. Mrs. Fenette had even returned to drop off some snacks for him, probably due to some intervention on Shirley's part. As for the Black Knights, Ohgi had been handling operations very well, but he feared the existence of large security lapses due to his sudden leaving of the Nerv base, during which he hadn't exactly observed a clear procedure for security.

The door to his room opened, and a wheelchair rolled over the curb.

"Ah, is it you, Nunnally—" he stopped. It was not, in fact, Nunnally, but Suzaku whose wheelchair came to a halt by his bed.

"Lelouch"

"Suzaku"

The young men exchanged equally calculated looks, each attempting to read the other's thoughts. Neither spoke for a while, and then,

"What were you doing there, on that mountain?" Suzaku demanded bluntly.

"I was trying to get Shirley out," Lelouch countered.

"Why was she there in the first place?" Suzaku asked with suspicion.

"I asked her to meet me there, when I came back from the Homeland."

"The Homeland," Suzaku snorted. "Why did you call to meet her there, then? Why a backwoods area fenced off for military operations?"

"How could I have known?" Lelouch exclaimed with passable incredulity. "I was away, and could not have heard the announcements."

Suzaku's eyes lit.

"The announcements were not broadcast _anywhere_ outside of Area 11," he said slowly. "How could you have even known about what's in there?"

'_Clever, Suzaku, very clever…I screwed up'_

But he had been here a few days. If Suzaku had asked the moment he stepped into the hospital room, Lelouch would have been in a very difficult predicament. More importantly, why is Suzaku acting so strangely? Was there a particular reason for his suspicion?

"Mrs. Fenette told me," he said. "She was understandably upset."

'_I admit, I failed to capitalize on that point,'_ Suzaku thought. _'I can't prove that Lelouch has lied about going away.'_ He scratched his head.

"I suppose," he said. "Is…is Ms. Fenette alright?"

"Minor injuries and shock," Lelouch replied. "She'll be fine. What about you, Suzaku?"

The change in subject could not be easily countered without Suzaku exposing his intentions. He could only play along with Lelouch.

"I'm fine," he said. "Her Highness took me into her service after I came out of the hospital."

"I see. That's good," Lelouch said. What sort of work? It didn't seem to be anything good where an investigation into Lelouch was concerned. Suzaku was always blunt and tactless, and it did not serve him well here, which reflected on Euphy's lack of forethought as well. He smiled his best fake smile. Suzaku nodded.

"She was very kind," he said.

"_She _is_ kind, but not kind enough to put you where you really belong—a rehabilitation center and then retirement. You don't belong here, Suzaku Kururugi. You cannot hope to compete in this world. Don't be a fool. Go home."_

Lelouch gave him a friendly smile, concealing a brooding pool of venom underneath.

"I suppose," he said. "That we can be friends again, like the old times…right, Suzaku?"

XXXXX

During the Second Generation of Knightmare development, a common soldier named Marianne "the Flash" Lamprouge had been the greatest ace of her era, so skilled that Emperor Charles zi Britannia himself took note of her and, later, married her. It was no small feat, though one she paid for with her life years later. Videos of her combat were, as to be expected, standard materials in Knightmare instruction and training, but not all of them were publically available.

Sitting back in a towel on the edge of a porcelain and gold tub, Asuka leaned her head into a soft, overstuffed plush cushion built into the wall for just this purpose. She watched the familiar scenes again, always trying to find something new that she'd missed on her last run. There wasn't much; she had bought her way into the secret archives and come out with mountains of lower-level classified material, and occasionally, things that the Empire forgot, such as the battle between Empress Marianne and the mysterious Knight of One, Tabris von Stuhl.

_A silver Ganymede arced through the air, landing centimeters from the blue-and-white Ganymede of Marianne Lamprouge. It punched out, and was deflected by an uppercut of the other Ganymede's right arm. Marianne's machine's foot rolled onto the side of its wheels and swiped, missing as von Stuhl fly-kicked at the exposed cockpit. Metal hands smacked together around the silver knee-joint with a grip that would have crushed anything but solid metal, releasing to protect their operator from the silver arm that swung in from the side as von Stuhl spun on his other leg. Metal clanged onto metal, the duel moving back and forth, until Marianne rolled forwards, ducked beneath a punch with centimeters to spare, and struck von Stuhl's Ganymede._

Asuka stopped the video, looking for what she knew to be there. In von Stuhl's image, she saw the tiniest glimmer of royal violet flashing out. A month back, she had noticed the glimmer, and it did not help lessen her confusion at what happened next.

_With inhuman speed, von Stuhl swerved, grabbed the hand, and threw the blue Ganymede fifty meters away, where its wheels found traction again, but not before von Stuhl caught up. With equal speed, Marianne threw a three-punch combo, two to one side and the final jab from the other side. Von Stuhl met it head-on, and fell over his controls as the fist passed right overhead. In the space it took for Marianne to fight off the inertia of the missed punch, a silver fist crashed into the flat side of her Ganymede's arm, denting the metal. It screeched, hydraulic liquid spurting with wanton abandon and wires blasting off random bursts of electricity. Marianne skirted a circle around von Stuhl to smash his batteries, only to find that von Stuhl had seemingly read her exact moments and placed his Ganymede's other fist at the precise spot where her Knightmare's good arm's joint would be, at the precise angle—46.5, by later reckoning—to strike the joint perpendicularly. The arm fell to the Ganymede's side, all but cut off, and Marianne was forced to back away at breakneck speed. Von Stuhl pursued, stopped just short of a sweeping kick and took out the knee. Now, Marianne had only one leg to balance the ungainly Ganymede on. She did not give up, bending the knee and screeching to the right, just as von Stuhl kicked to the opposite direction. The blue Ganymede skittered helplessly across the sand of the arena floor, throwing its pilot through the dirt, and was hidden by a film of acrid smoke from its overloaded parts._

The sauna timer beeped softly. Asuka turned off the screen and slipped off her towel. The hard, curvaceous body that slipped into warm, perfumed water never did disappoint her during a bath. If she were a man, her abdomen would have been bulging with lumps. In her case, they wrapped her middle in a tight hourglass shape. Exercise was better than any corset.

Her head sank through the bubbling bath, air escaping her lungs as she sank into the rose-scented water, hair floating up to soak up the minerals dissolved into her every bath. Wealth was as luxurious as it was tiresome. The bath was five meters by three by one, far larger than was necessary, but she had space to sweep across the tub, letting the automatic current massage wash over her whole body.

_The Flash_

_The other flash_

_It looked like von Stuhl knew exactly where Marianne was planning to strike, and that reflex…it was unnaturally precise. His Ganymede had barely worn down its joints._

Annoyed, Asuka scrambled onto the seat set into the bottom of the tub and reclined against the soft back, turning off the massage currents and letting the water calm down. Without bubbles constantly spewing fresh scent, what was already there began to settle on her exposed skin. It was irksome, forming a light film of nauseating sweetness, which Asuka was too distracted to notice. To be honest, she was a little scared. The Knight of One was not particularly friendly to her. It seems that he was also making moves on Shinji Ikari.

She snapped upwards.

Shinji Ikari

Lelouch Lamprouge has been away from home almost constantly, leaving Ikari on his own inside the student dorms. It seemed as if the two did not, at the very least, have much of a friendship with one another. On the other hand, Lamprouge's sister spent the day outside in the school, and was often out playing with some newly picked up friend or another. Doubtlessly, Ikari would be at the mercy of anyone who happens to stroll by, and von Stuhl had an annoying knack for blending into crowds and sticking his nose where it did not belong.

As she thought, she turned the tap. Scented water was flushed away by a torrent of cooler, fresh water, and a silent fan began sucking away the dense air. Scented baths did no good if one smelled too sweet. The cool water crashed with the warm, jolting her senses back to wakefulness.

If such an important individual were to be left alone, as open to manipulation as he was, there could be problems.

A small clock set into the wall chimed. The bath stopped automatically. It was time for her to finish her bath. The water receded, draining away soundlessly, and she stepped out. The room was already chilling as the extractor drained the warm air, in the process speeding up her process of drying. The waiting towel and underwear were where they should be, along with a tight corset, push-up bra and a neatly folded silk dress with a hoop skirt. She grimaced. Duchess Langley was due to arrive, cutting short both an enjoyable long bath and her thoughts. She probably had another suitor to bring her—the woman was a little silly, though kind enough in her careless way. She was not, however, stupid. Asuka was the only one left to protect her interests when the Archduke breathed his last. Her choices: be driven out by an ambitious younger generation sooner or later, or be reduced to an antiquated accessory with no power of her own. Though it was annoying, Asuka knew that she had little choice but to protect this woman for the sake of her reputation, since the duchess is her titular mother and benefactor, though the latter description had ceased to be valid long ago.

Asuka fingered the strings in the tight hourglass corset. No use trying to just throw it on. Duchess Langley will tell in an instant if her adopted daughter—if any woman, to be exact—was properly dressed. Shaking her head, she pulled the string tight, wincing as the cloth wrapped around her.

"As if I need to go through so much pain for a man to look at me," she grumbled. "Men! What the hell do they even have in their minds anyway?" It was indeed an uncomfortable setup. The bra pinched out the topmost parts of her breasts, the hoops, though made out of lightweight carbon, still dragged, and the train was absolutely infuriating. She stopped to holler a few unladylike curses at a mirror, and then slapped on a game face. The business with Ikari would have to wait. Her mother would arrive soon. The small cottage was neat and clean, and well-furnished enough for a woman of Madame Langley's station, thanks to Kaji's expert eye for locating bargain rental substitutes that looked just like the real thing. Asuka sighed as she put on some ludicrous but "fashionable" piece of footwear that she could not even begin to name, and burst out of the back rooms like a vexed whirlwind.

Duchess Langley had not stayed the same airheaded girl that the Archduke set his eyes onto. With the years, she had grown wiser, older and more manipulative. The effort of countless plastic surgeons and piles of cash had kept her appearance in a rather attractive state, with a head of light brown hair and soft-looking eyes that hid a real court politician. With her was a young man of perhaps nineteen, tall, muscular, with an equestrian look about him. His hair was combed back severely, groomed to an irritating degree, a living effigy of pampering wealth. When Asuka entered the room with a dish of tea and sweets, he stood up to bow and take her hand, but stopped in surprise when the girl dropped a very slight courtesy, went to the table, and poured for the three of them. Only when she had served her adopted mother did she stand back up and properly introduce herself.

"Lady Langley," the young man said, kissing her gloved hand. "I am bedazzled."

"Lord Hartington, the pleasure is all mine," she said with a smile. "Please, make yourself at home. Would you like some refreshments?"

"As it is, I shall surrender myself to such an honor," he said. He seated her by her mother's right side, and took a seat across from Asuka, who sized him up. Typical nobleman, good-looking, well-mannered and clever in his choice of seating for her, neither putting her at too important a position, the head of the table, nor belittling her rank by putting her at any place other than the right hand of the most distinguished personage at the table.

"Asuka, dear," the Duchess said warmly. "There is no more need for introductions, I see. You children managed that quite well on your own, but…"

She glanced at the two attendants that stood with them.

"Why did you bring out the refreshments yourself? What are your servants to do if the mistress of the house is doing such work on her own?"

Trap

Asuka smiled obligingly.

"What stuff, mother," she said. "How can I be the mistress of the house? That would be you. Besides, how better for a daughter to show her affection than by personally serving her mother?"

The woman beamed with satisfaction at the girl, who took this break to sip a drink of tea. Her eyes flitted between her adoptive mother and the young man casually chatting with a butler. Alfonso Hartington, eldest son of the Viscount Hartington, heir apparent to a mining empire with a tremendous amount of interest in Area 11's sakuradite, rather high up on gossip magazines' crush lists. His financial prospects were about equal to hers, which means bringing him into the family could double their coffers, not to mention the fact that the Langley and Hartington estates would hold a vertical monopoly in manufacturing Knightmare armor and sakuradite drives. It was a good deal, she thought. The duchess has an excellent eye for cash cows.

XXXXX

Rei was sitting alone again, though that was only normal. As usual, Shinji scooted to her side, the only person eating with her.

"Hey, A…Miss Aldington," he said. "Why don't you eat with someone?"

She glanced at him with a cold eye.

"Must I?" she asked. "Is there any immediate benefit?"

"Well, don't you want…friends?"

She looked down at her lunch for a moment, and then pursed her lips.

"I…need no friends."

**End Stage XIV**


	15. The Machine

Code Evangelion

**Stage XV: The Machine**

Mount Asama Geological Observatory

The mood inside the room was tense. Asuka and Misato stood next to one another with arms crossed, glaring at the panel of technicians and a large screen filled with bright red.

"Ma'am, the probe…it won't last any longer," a technician blurted. He was addressing Asuka, ignoring Misato, who was technically the commander of this operation. She scowled.

"Nerv will compensate you for any equipment damaged or lost," she snarled. "Press on!"

The technician glanced at Asuka.

"I am only an observer," Asuka said. "You will take orders from Captain Katsuragi."

Overhead, monitors chimed. The probe had reached its maximum safe depth.

"Keep going," Misato said. The technicians muttered amongst themselves. Asuka glanced at the older woman. She was having problems repressing her temper. On the other hand, the technicians clearly did not want to break valuable equipment at the word of an Eleven.

"I guarantee that Nerv will compensate you for your time and equipment," she said. "Carry on."

She and Misato exchanged glances. Misato's eyes narrowed. Asuka dipped her head.

The probe emitted a loud crack. Warnings blared to life across the control room. The technicians scrambled to try to save the probe, but it was too late. Pressure from many kilotons of magma shattered the machine, and the screen fuzzed out.

"The probe has been destroyed, _ma'am_," the technician glowered, this time at Misato.

"Send the bill to Nerv," the woman replied coldly. "Any data recovered?"

"None before the—" the technician began.

"What's that?" Asuka asked sharply, before the technician could hide something.

"Oh, nothing," the man said.

"Bring it up," Asuka said coldly. "Now"

The bit of data was magnified. It was clearly a huge spike on the abnormal energy readings chart, the one especially modified to sense AT Fields.

"You missed it, sir," Asuka said. "Something even an untrained eye could easily notice. What a shame for a skilled employee of the Imperial Academy of Science. Get every bit of data from this probe analyzed, cleaned and sent to Nerv _immediately_. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes, milady," the man squeaked. Misato looked away for a moment while Asuka took a small sip of coffee. Not decaf.

"Let's go, Captain," Asuka said. "Let them work in peace."

"After you, milady," Misato replied, stepping aside.

"Thank you"

The two women found themselves outside, in the open field where the probe had been assembled. Now, a plethora of machines dominated the view, along with a gigantic crane that sprawled across the open mouth of the volcano. The remains of the probe were being hauled up, to the great dismay of the yard workers. Some cast Misato dirty glances, but hurried away when Asuka appeared. Asuka, for her part, seemed used to the aura of power.

"Well, Captain, do you know what this means?" she asked.

"There is most likely an Angel hidden in Mount Asama," Misato said.

"And why has it not attacked?" Asuka asked sharply. "Every time we have detected an Angel, it was on the warpath. Yet this one has been emitting faint readings for a week. Therefore, it is either…"

She pulled on her gloves.

"A. non-hostile, which I doubt, B. disabled, which is a possibility, considering how deep down it is in the volcano, or C. weak and not yet ready. I am inclined to go with choice C."

"In other words, it's still immature?"

"Perhaps; we must wait for more accurate results. In the meantime, I believe it is time we went on alert."

XXXXX

He sat away from the gaggles of Britannian students, alone, as usual. Lamprouge was off on some business of his own, and Shinji was left to stare at Rei Aldington from the shadows. Like him, she never interacted with the other students. He wondered if he should go to her. She looked so lonely.

But he wasn't capable of sustaining a conversation. What if he made himself look like a socially awkward idiot? He probably would. Talking to girls was…never his strong suit. Still, he just wanted a friend. After all, they would watch each other's backs…

But she never went into combat, not even once. It was he and Langley who cleared every mission. Ayanami—it sounded better to his ears—was never seen taking her Unit 00 out of the Cage. He wondered why. Perhaps it is because Unit 00 is the Prototype and not meant for combat. Still, he liked to know that he would have a friendly person backing him up.

"Hey, Ms. Aldington," he said. "Do you, uh, mind if I sat?"

She shook her head no, but declined to talk, instead taking out some books and beginning her school work. Half of lunch eroded away in this quagmire of awkwardness, neither of the two allowing words to escape their lips. His heart pounding, Shinji decided to take a step.

"Aren't you going to talk?"

'_That was a horrible way to start a conversation,'_ he thought immediately. She turned in surprise.

"I was intending to ask you the same question," she said. "I do not…know."

It was even worse than Shinji had imagined. Neither of them even knew how to begin. But at least she was as clueless as he was; that was a relief. Lunch ended there, and she stood up rigidly, as if she were an automaton and not a flesh-and-blood girl. Still, the movement was graceful and pretty. A slight wind ruffled her clothes and hair, her bangs billowing over her forehead. He scrambled after her, ignored by the girl that walked like a machine.

She was icy cold to him all that day, though it was no different from her treatment of him on any other day. He hesitated to go near her, even more so than he hesitated to speak up to Langley, who at least was definitely a normal person, albeit unnervingly intelligent and hard as nails.

As usual, Ayanami paid him no heed until the end of the day, when it was her job to take him to the dormitory that Lamprouge occupied. Today, they were in no hurry to get home. He gulped, and made up his mind. He nudged her elbow.

"Miss Aldington, are you, um, going anywhere today?" he asked.

"No, I am not. Why do you ask?" she said.

"Well, um, I was hoping that you could, um, come by and, well, make friends, that's all," he stuttered.

"Why?"

"Because…because…" he struggled for words. A reason leapt to his mind. "Well, it would be convenient!"

"I see"

She sounded unconvinced, uncaring, as if she didn't want to know that he wanted to get closer to her, as if she didn't give a damn about him. She left him, as always, and went away the same way she always went away, walking gracefully down the street and never looking back. He was a little saddened, but determined that if she wanted to drop by, he would be ready for her.

After all, he just wanted a friend, right?

XXXXX

"Your highness, any words?" Asuka asked cautiously. Schnizel el Britannia slowly nodded.

"You will not be part of this operation," he said.

"What…what, your highness?" she gasped.

"Asuka Langley, Knight of Two, daughter of the Archduke Langley, senior officer in the Britannian armed forces, awarded countless medals for her service to the Empire."

He chuckled over his drink, and leaned in closer to her on the couch they were sitting on. His fingers traced over her cheek.

"My dear, I would not for the world that you be the one dropped into a live volcano," he whispered. She shivered, trying to lean away from him without overtly resisting. The Prince recollected himself, chuckled some more, and downed the rest of the martini. Thankful, she nudged herself a minute bit of space. They were in his apartment at Area Eleven, a preposterously luxurious affair with fountains, an indoor pool, and a full cabinet of wines. She did not ask for any, and she doubted he would have given a minor alcohol anyways. His manner was always more relaxed here, and exhibited a scary soft spot for Asuka. If he asked, well...would there be any question? She didn't like devious politicos, especially not Schnizel. The flesh and blood Prince was no Prince Charming.

"Why did you volunteer for this, Asuka?" Schnizel asked with his back to her, voice less casual than before. "There is no need for you to seek more glory in such dangerous missions. Your valor is well established, and by heaven, you are still fourteen. There's a lifetime's worth of laurels to wear."

"Only doing my duty, your highness," she said.

"Then what of the Eleven and Aldington?" Schnizel asked. "Should they not also shoulder their share of the burden?"

"I believe, your highness, that I am best qualified for this," Asuka said. Schnizel raised an eyebrow.

"Best qualified for floating down and snapping a cage around an inanimate lump?" he asked. "Should that not be automated?"

"The risk of it breaking loose is too great," Asuka replied. "An Evangelion needs to be onsite to negate the Angel's AT Field, anyhow."

Schnizel nodded.

"And if the mission should fail? If the Angel should awake and find itself attacked?" Schnizel asked. "Surely, you know what happened the last time humanity raised its hand against an Angel."

Asuka shuddered. The official story of Second Impact had been that of a meteorite strike from a tiny micro-meteor traveling at nearly the speed of light. The real story was that of a completely different nature. An investigation led by the father of Misato Katsuragi had chanced upon the giant being known as ADAM, the first Angel. In the ensuing investigation, ADAM awoke, and an attempt was made to restrain it with the "Lance of Longinus," a giant lance found near ADAM dubbed thus because of its inherent anti-ADAM properties—Longinus being the name of the Roman centurion who stabbed Christ with a spear, and ADAM being an almost godlike creature. The last time that humans attacked an Angel actively, then, caused a retaliation that destroyed half the planet.

Schnizel raised his glass to her. The lust returned to his eyes.

"Now, we can't have you caught in Plan B, can we?"

XXXXX

"Miso soup?"

Rei raised the spoon to her lips. The aroma of the soup wafted around Shinji's room. She tasted it, thought for a moment, and nodded.

"It's good," she commented. Shinji blushed at the comment.

"Ah, thank you," he said with a stammer. "I'm glad you liked it."

She looked at him strangely, and he recoiled in fear that he had offended her somehow. She put the soup down, and looked disdainfully at a tray of sandwiches. Quietly, she went back to her soup.

"Don't you want a sandwich?" he asked tentatively.

"I don't eat meat"

She didn't look offended or disturbed, merely continued eating her soup. Shinji wrung his hands nervously. Rei put down the empty soup bowl.

"Thank you…"she murmured, almost a little out of character. She smoothed the lapel of her dress, a strange outfit for her, and folded her napkin up.

"Oh, you're welcome," he said, relieved that she seemed to enjoy herself. "I, um, didn't know you were vegetarian."

"It is no matter," she said.

"But, it is!" he protested. "I didn't…that is, you couldn't enjoy something because I didn't know that you don't eat meat…"

To his surprise, she colored a little.

"I see," she said. They sat across from each other for an awkward moment. A light knock came at the door, and Sayoko appeared.

"Mister Ikari, Miss Aldington," she said. "There is a young lady to see you. She gives the name Asuka Soryu."

Shinji jumped and then sat down. He didn't know an Asuka Soryu. It was a Japanese name, not one Langley would have.

Langley stepped into the room.

"Thank you, Sayoko," she said. "You may leave now."

Shinji stared, mouth agape, as the Knight of Two removed a pretty, wide-brimmed sun bonnet and sunglasses.

"Do you mind?" she inquired. Rei opened her mouth, but then closed it.

"No, ma'am," she said. Asuka's look flitted between the two.

"It seems that I have intruded on something I should not have," she said. "Have I?"

"Of course not," Rei said. Her voice was a little steelier than it usually was. Asuka's eyes narrowed at the other girl, who met her gaze with seeming impunity.

"I will wait," she said. "In the meantime, enjoy yourselves."

She turned her heel and marched out. The door shut behind her, and Rei turned to Shinji.

"My reaction was not wholly appropriate," she observed. "Lady Langley could not have known about us." She fidgeted, and shifted her attention to Shinji again.

"Ikari, why did you do all this for me?" she asked. Shinji's confused look clouded over.

"Well, you were always so lonely," he said. "I just wanted to make a friend, that's all."

"Friends…"

The way it rolled off of her tongue was odd, foreign, as if it didn't belong there. What, has she never had a friend? That would be ridiculous. But then, she _was_ so very withdrawn and awkward. She was putting her gloves on—he hadn't even noticed how well-dressed she was—and fetched her jacket.

"Ikari, we should not keep Lady Langley waiting," she said. Her voice chilled several degrees. Obediently, Shinji trudged along after her. In the living room, Asuka had taken off her coat. Underneath, she wore a simple, tasteful combination of half-buttoned blouse, woolen vest and black business skirt. The Langley crest was sewn in gold thread on the lapel of her vest. She was having a soft conversation with Nunnally when Shinji and Rei appeared in the doorway. Rei knocked on the door frame.

"Milady"

Nunnally turned in the general direction of the sound, and Asuka set her tea on the saucer. Rei sized her down, moving as if to courtesy but stopping herself. Asuka saluted in an easy, crisp motion.

A full second passed before Rei and Shinji found the wits to return the salute. Asuka motioned to Sayoko, who wheeled Nunnally away. When the civilians were out of the room, Asuka turned to Shinji and Rei.

"I'm sorry if I've disrupted your little date," she said sternly. "A new Angel has been found. We will move to attack it. The plan has been made. Report to your Evangelions at 0600 hours tomorrow; here is the mission plan."

She produced a pair of manila envelopes and walked to the door.

"That will be all."

XXXXX

Lelouch Lamprouge was exhausted. Well after his day was over, he was still holed up in the Black Knights command vehicle, borrowed from a nobleman, with a custom-built module for Zero to occupy. He was struggling to keep the revolutionary fervor that had elevated him to power. The war against an inhuman enemy was draining the hate from Japan against Britannians. Sure, Zero was still a household name, a national hero of sorts, but his potent power was running out.

"_I need them to hate! There's not enough hatred…"_

Hopeless, he mechanically read through a series of reports. Budget, budget, recruitment falling, finances becoming better, the organization of the Black Knights strengthening, all seemingly pointing to a generally positive trend, but the foundation of all his plans, the hatred of Elevens, was waning.

A special memo caught his eye. It came from Nerv HQ, forwarded through Britannian channels. As he read, his eyes grew wide. He was saved. A laugh rippled through his sternum, up his wind wipe, and exploded out of his mouth in a high-pitched, insane burst of sound.

XXXXX

Rei Ayanami found, for the first time in her life, that she could not rationalize her thoughts. They spun in circles around the events of the afternoon, around Ikari.

Why did she snap at Lady Langley? Logically, there was no way for her to have known what she and Ikari had been doing. There was no reason for Rei to feel a stab of anger at the intrusion. In fact, it was state business and should therefore be rated above personal ones.

Nevertheless, she felt as if she wanted to take the other girl and throw her out of the door for interrupting the moment.

Moment

What moment could she mean? Sitting with an altogether unfamiliar boy sipping soup could not mean so much to her; it made no sense to her. He was nothing but a charge to her, after all.

But he was still the first person to show her so much consideration, even though they were not friends.

Friends

That was what Ikari had called the two of them, friends. Rei has never had a friend, never thought she would have or need one. Being Ikari's friend, on the other hand, did not seem like such an unpleasant prospect. Perhaps he will make his miso soup for her again.

She rolled over on her unkempt bed. The room was suddenly too austere to her eye, and not even clean. All of a sudden, she felt that if Ikari were to see this, he wouldn't approve.

Rei Ayanami slipped out of her bed and picked her way through the piles of items on the floor. For the first time in a long while, she began cleaning her room.

XXXXX

It was always odd for there to be protests among the usually cowed Elevens, but the riot police were struggling to keep the tide of furious Elevens in check. Euphemia ducked instinctively as a can of something nasty caused her limousine to catch on fire. The flaming liquid rolled off of the side of the cab, and she screamed. The guards next to her yelled at her to order the police to open fire with live ammunition, but she shook her head vigorously. The limo's driver yelled as he found his way out of the mob and onto the highway. When they were clear of danger, Euphemia uncurled and began to shake.

"Milady," a guard said, holding out a blanket. "We're safe now."

Gratefully, she took the blanket and huddled in it. The guard handed her a glass of water.

"Thank you…" she murmured.

The protest continued. The guards exchanged nervous glances. The slogans held by the mob said to value the life of an Eleven and to scrap "Plan B." The soldiers had no idea, of course, and were accustomed to not knowing. Euphemia hiccupped.

"They don't want Nerv to use Shinji Ikari," she whispered. "Who leaked the information?"

The guards all leapt to cleaning their weapons and making sure over and over again that their ammo supply was ample. The Princess was loose with her tongue and state secrets. Nevertheless, the men knew of Shinji Ikari, the Eleven who pilots Evangelion Unit 01, whose leaked name has become a symbol of pride for all Elevens. The mob must have known something that was also leaked that involved some act that puts Ikari in needless danger, although the very nature of his job does that already.

The noise of the mob could still be heard, as far away as they were, until a pair of massive Evangelion transport roared in overhead. The crowd began to scream as the sound crushed them to the ground, and the police, even behind riot gear, were barely standing up. Then, the panic began. Protesters ran in every direction, pushing, shoving and stampeding away from the jets, which herded them like cattle. Euphemia gasped in horror.

"Stop!" she yelled. "Tell them to stop doing that!"

The guards looked at each other, shrugging.

"We don't have the authority to contact Nerv in this vehicle, ma'am," one said. "It hasn't been verified as a secure asset."

"Then drive me back!" Euphemia yelled. "Let me stop them!"

"Your highness, the pilots won't even be able to see you!" the driver interjected. "And you know they won't hear you. Please! Don't put yourself in danger like this!"

"But…" she protested weakly. The men stared grimly at her. She shrunk back in her seat, defeated. The Nerv transports pulled away and left. Underneath, Evangelions could clearly be seen. They were going ahead with their plan anyway. It was bad; if anything happens to Shinji Ikari that could be pinned anywhere near Britannia, then the island would explode.

For now, peace was restored, and Euphemia could hunker down and cry.

**End Stage XV**


	16. Rebirth

Code Evangelion

**Stage XVI: Rebirth**

Mount Asama

Shinji tried not to notice the fact that Rei looked eleven months pregnant, if that were even possible. The Plug Suit was inflated to balloon-like proportions. The size did not look to be bulky, and she easily made it into the Entry Plug of a similarly suited Unit 00. It was painted blue after a series of upgrades that cranked it to a level where it was useful for combat. The D-Type Equipment looked like an oversized metal space suit, supposedly able to withstand the same N2 weapons that Nerv possesses.

"Miss Aldington," he said. "Take…um, take care, okay?"

To his astonishment, she turned and nodded.

"Thank…you, Shinji Ikari," she said in a whisper. Then, the seal of the Entry Plug shut her away.

Sirens began a low, urgent hum as the two Evangelions were uncovered. A giant crane system had been set up, and it now hooked the back of Unit 00's armor. Unit 01 proceeded to a spot marked with reinforced steel at the mouth of the volcano, deemed strong enough to support and Evangelion. In front of Unit 00, a laser marker found the Angel drifting kilometers below, and expertly tagged it with a marker. Unit 00 now hung right over the magma.

"_Beginning descent," _Rei said calmly. The heavy bundle of cords holding Unit 00 began unraveling, and the Evangelion splashed into the river of molten rock.

"_Unit 00 has entered Mount Asama. Temperature and pressure are stable. No problems detected."_

"Understood," Misato said. In her Unit 02 back at Nerv HQ, Asuka tapped the controls anxiously. Now only had Prince Schnizel barred her from participating, she had to sit on the foul duty of riot control, not something she particularly cared for. She certainly would hate to let her Eva sink so low as to spend its day trampling over civilians. On her multi-screen display, Aldington has almost found the Angel. She was merely five hundred meters from where the Angel was supposed to be.

"Headquarters to Unit 00," Asuka said, unable to contain her impatience. "Is there visual confirmation of the target yet?"

"_Negative,"_ Rei replied. _"Switching to sonar mode; scanning."_

A moment later,

"_Negative. No target detected. Requesting re-calculation of target position"_

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's voice came over the intercom.

"The magma is moving faster than we previously anticipated," she said. "We'll have to move further down."

An instrument display told her that Unit 00 was reaching the maximum safe depth. She turned to Misato.

"Misato, the probe is manned this time," she warned. "Well?"

Misato gritted her teeth. Would all their work be moot?

"Continue descending," she barked. "We need a live Angel sample."

"_But, Misato, what about Rei—I mean, what about Miss Aldington?"_ Shinji asked.

"_I will be fine,"_ Rei said. _"Continuing descent"_

Another mere two hundred meters brought her within visual range of the murky target. Tilting, Unit 00 extended a pair of large pincers, arms of a magnetic cage, and the force field found its way around the creature.

"The electromagnetic cage has been spread. No problems detected; target has been captured," Rei announced.

XXXXX

Lelouch found himself rubbing his eyes again. Even without his contact lens, his eye kept itching. The Geass eye, to be exact, and it bothered him. Twice, now, he had felt the Geass slip his grasp. Out of caution, he had put the lens back on. Still, the itching was unbearable.

The sound of pizza being munched alerted him to C.C.'s presence.

"Good morning, Lelouch," she said. "Still worrying over your eye?"

"What do you want, C.C.?" he said tiredly.

"Don't you want to know? Nerv has captured an Angel," C.C. said coolly. She sat down next to him and chewed on her pizza. He slowly turned around to face her.

"They caught a…what?" he asked.

"An Angel," she repeated. "The operation at Mt. Asama went perfectly. Unit 00 was able to capture the Angel and bring it back to base, where it has been frozen. The Angel did not hatch, for which we are grateful. The riots have died, too, since Ikari did not dive into magma."

"Is that…so?" he said slowly. Nerv possesses an Angel. God only knows how far studying an Angel would advance Nerv's power. Perhaps the bastards would even solve their Evangelions' power problem. The problem was that the most combat-capable one is in the hands of Asuka Langley. His eye twitched. It was time to begin intervention.

"Are Ohgi's preparations ready?" he asked coldly.

C.C.'s eyebrows tilted up.

"Going a bit too far, aren't we?" she said. "Do you think it is really time for _that_, with so many Angels still to come?"

"Defeating the Angels is dependent on Evangelions. It doesn't matter who controls them," Lelouch said. "Tell Ohgi to advance the schedule of plan B.775."

C.C. chuckled.

"Go ahead," she said. "I'll do that. In the meantime, order another pizza."

XXXXX

The Angel was hideous, like a fetus aborted at the end of the first trimester, still scrunched up in an oval ball, with spikes protruding from its bones. Asuka shuddered at the pulsing, gelatinous flesh that hung around the bony skeleton. The Angel was kept under a solid sheet of transparent Bakelite as workers scrambled about to chip their way into its chorion and find the Core, the most prized part of the beast.

"It's reminiscent," Misato said glumly. Asuka turned to look at her, as much as that was possible in a Level-A HAZMAT suit.

"What do you mean, Captain?"

"Fifteen years ago…I'd rather not talk about it," the woman replied. "The information is available for you, Lady Langley. The documentation tells a much better story than I can."

"I have," Asuka said. "And I know what this reminds you of."

Misato's lips tightened. In a paternal gesture, Asuka put her hand on Misato's shoulder.

"But, that's all in the past," she said. "You should not worry. Your duty, and mine, is to grab onto the future."

She made a sweeping gesture at the Angel.

"I don't think you understand, milady," Misato said.

"Of course I don't," Asuka replied. "How can I? But that does not mean I cannot try. After all, the two of us are responsible for Nerv and the defense of humanity."

"I see," Misato said rigidly.

The lights around them flickered. Shouts came from the technicians, who began scrambling off of the Angel as lights went off one by one. Emergency lighting switched on and off, and dull, red battery-powered last resort lighting blinked balefully. A pair of shouting guards found Asuka and dragged her out of the nearest emergency exit while Misato squeezed her own way out. The Angel sat where it has been, abandoned by the fleeing humans.

Powerful flashlights illuminated Asuka's HAZMAT suit, which she stripped off with little regard for sterile procedures.

"What's going on? You there, report!" she yelled.

"Ma'am, all of the base is blacked out! All emergency backups have been shut off!" someone yelled. "Should we turn around, milady? You're—"

"Keep talking, and never mind what I'm wearing!" she said. "You there, give me my sidearm!"

The gun belt she strapped on across the skintight suit she wore under the HAZMAT gear. With her guards, she stormed out of the locker room, barely pausing to put on a pair of riding boots. The tight black leather winked in the light of the guards' searchlights, immodestly exposing the back of her body.

"Someone knocked out the main power generator, huh?" she muttered. "At once, too; this has to be an insider job."

Misato Katsuragi rounded a corner and almost ran into Asuka. The guards shouted and leveled their weapons.

"Hold it, you!" Asuka bellowed. "Captain, give me a status report, _now_!"

"Rei has been located," Misato said. "Shinji is above ground. But the Evangelions…they won't be able to activate or get out!"

"Don't you have any more backups?"

"Only a diesel generator and external batteries for the Evas," Misato said. "The Commander is on his way."

Asuka nodded, quietly re-checking the safety on her pistol to calm her nerves. Misato eyed the skintight suit with a raised eyebrow. The girl had the toned musculature of a leopardess and enviable breasts that were certainly too much to be flailing around in a huddle of nervous, sweaty men. Jeremiah Gottwald presently resolved that particular problem by busting through the other guards with a large uniform overcoat.

"Milady, please, put this on," he said. She draped the red coat over her shoulders and re-strapped her pistol over it. Together, the group walked through the manually cranked doors of the Cage, and found maintenance workers in a state of chaos. Ritsuko Akagi ran out of the crowd.

"Unit 02 isn't going to activate!" she declared. "All sakuradite systems have been jammed by something god-awful. Unit 01 is partially blocked, but we can get it moving in three hours. Right now, Unit 00 is the only Eva we have."

Asuka's scowl turned feral.

"A Gefjun Disturber," she said.

"Multiple," Ritsuko corrected. "There would have to be literally hundreds to disable the entire Nerv base, and the Evangelions are too heavily shielded to be taken down by just one, no matter how big it is."

She shuddered.

"I thought that wasn't even possible," she admitted.

"Apparently, the impossible has shut off two thirds of Nerv's tactical fighting force," Asuka said coldly. "Idiots"

Misato and Ritsuko flinched, looking angrily at Asuka, who assessed her options.

"The MAGI are down too, I suppose?"

"No; but they are on minimum power consumption mode," Ritsuko said. "Unit 00 cannot be reconfigured for your use, ma'am. Not unless we take out all the Disturbers."

Asuka hissed in irritation.

"I understand," she said in a forced voice. "I will find my own way out, then." Turning to her guards, she barked, "Brown, Vince, the two of you lead a firing squadron and find whatever it is that's shutting down power. Dr. Akagi will find someone with an idea of how you can find them. Jeremiah, come with me. We'll go and establish contact with His Highness Schnizel and the Viceroy. Someone, find Zero and tell him to get his people on standby. Go!"

XXXXX

Lelouch chuckled as he sipped a mug of coffee. That girl was quick; there was, of course, no way for the men she sent out to do their duty. The technicians were thoroughly under his control and will lead them into ambushes set up by street thugs and homeless men turned into mindless cannon fodder. He remained the only one able to see through the CCTV cameras within the base—they ran on their own batteries, but the security center was blacked out by Rakshata's feat of ingenuity. At any moment, the attack would begin, and the Black Knights will be the first ones on the scene…and the first ones to take full control of the base. The fake Angel alarm to the north-east sent the entire Britannian occupation force scrambling.

C.C. smirked through her pizza.

"You are certainly interesting," she said. "I've made a good choice in giving you Geass."

He smiled at her, and tipped his mug.

"Thank you, C.C.," he said silkily. "What will I do without you?"

XXXXX

"Ikari, what will you do?"

Fuyutsuki stayed his feet, taking a moment to glance back at the gold-trimmed, red and violet Evangelion stored deep within Central Dogma. An Evangelion's visor-covered face stared dully back at the two men.

"Unit 01,"Gendo Ikari said. "It's almost complete, isn't it, Professor Fuyutsuki?"

"Yes…" Fuyutsuki said. "And what will you do with it, Ikari? What will you do with God?"

"I have my uses for Him," Gendo replied lazily. "And if I do need Him, I will awaken him."

"Quite presumptuous, aren't you?" Fuyutsuki said. "You'd even use God as a tool?"

"God," Gendo said. "Is dead; man's right hand is stained with His blood, and the sin of creating a new God, a new idol, to worship."

As he spoke, he seemed to nurse a newfound awkwardness in his right palm. The groaning from the silent Evangelion shifted pitch as Gendo stroked his gloved fist. Fuyutsuki glanced at it with suspicion, but said nothing.

"The next Angel will arrive soon," Gendo said. "A perfect opportunity for a field test, isn't it?"

"To test this soulless machine, you mean?" Fuyutsuki said. "You do not seriously intend to use Shinji for First Contact with Unit 07, do you?"

"Of course not," Gendo smirked. "I would not waste such a valuable resource like that."

"No word on the fact that he is your _son_?"

Gendo paused on the threshold of the secret hangar.

"Tough times call for extraordinary measures, Professor," he said, suddenly seeming older. "The old men and the Emperor are impatient. We have run out of time."

In the background, Evangelion Unit 07's dull visor-covered face blinked in the artificial light. Four kilometers underground and shielded by countermeasures nearly as thick, the machine slumbered.

XXXXX

Cornelia's throat constricted. Her lips parted in a furious growl.

"Fake…"she whispered. "We've been _had_."

The ocean shrieked and split open, hurling Britannian ships in every direction and throwing hapless Sutherlands into the abyss. The flying flagship rocked as a giant ball of light erupted from the center of the hole and drenched the world with a wall of water. Out of the explosion, jet-pack mounted Knightmares appeared. They were dull gray, of the same type, and wielding large claw arms that billowed with waves of red light. On each were etched the emblem of a single red dot, the old Japanese flag. The _Avalon_'s shield caught countless ripples of energy, but the same could not be said of the other ships and Knightmare frames caught by the onslaught of Radiant Wave Surge attacks. The sea boiled with molten metal.

"Get out of here!" Cornelia shouted. "It's an ambush! Are those things…it's the same kind of Knightmare as that red one that the Black Knights had. Did Kyoto leak their data?"

"No idea, ma'am, but we can't get a clear shot!" the weapons officer shot back. "I recommend full retreat!"

"Where the hell is von Stuhl?" Cornelia demanded. "He—"

"_Your Highness, I have been on standby. Worry not; your Knight will defend you."_

The Gawain was suddenly in the air. Von Stuhl was apparently on standby the entire time, and was ready to launch the moment the surprise attack hit. How he had known, Cornelia had no idea, but as of that moment the Gawain fired its torso cannon and raked the Hadron beam across the air, catching the gray knightmares in the sizzling energy beams, making fireworks out of their corpses. Cornelia relaxed, knowing that the terrorists were no match, and began assessing the damage done to her fleet, when a small klaxon began wailing.

XXXXX

Asuka's sword rang loudly on the barrel of a gun, slid down its length and slashed a deep gash in an attacker's hand. The flexible blade whipped out of the flesh and dove forwards again, finding a throat to pierce. She whirled and slashed across the face of the man behind her before swiping a hole in his jugular. The sword was dyed red, trickles of the stuff running down Asuka's forearm. She panted, trying not to choke on the fumes of dying men. The fighting in this sector was done, more or less. Her pistol was useless without ammunition. A deep nick in her side bit at her where a bullet found soft flesh and passed through. Jeremiah was by her side, patching the hole up.

"Sit down, milady," he said. "The area is clear; you have to rest. Let me bandage the wound."

She sat, as per requested, and leaned on his shoulder while he worked, breathing hard.

"It's a trap," she warned. "The Nerv crew…can't be trusted any more. Someone is using…some sort of hypnosis…look for the eyes, the eyes."

She coughed, prompting Jeremiah to hurriedly wrap her up in his own overcoat.

"If…I may speak my mind, milady, you _are_ still fourteen," he said. "You can't do this for so long."

"Don't tell me what I can do and what I can't," she snapped. "I'm fine now. Get moving; we have to secure the next Disturber. Get me a weapon from the corpses. Aren't the reinforcements here yet?"

Jeremiah reluctantly handed her an AK-47 and several extra clips.

"I fear the worst for the messenger," he said glumly. "Even if he made it, the reinforcements might not get back in time."

"Then, we will do this ourselves," Asuka said. "Never mind that we are outnumbered. You can see how _weak_ and useless these terrorists are."

She turned to the ragged group of soldiers clustered around them.

"Am I right?" she snarled. "None of us today will walk away with the shame of defeat! There will be no retreat!"

Jeremiah bowed his head wearily as the soldiers echoed with a roar. As the men resupplied with new weapons and ammunition, he turned back to Asuka, who was polishing her rapier on the shirt of a dead man. Her eyes looked glassy, in shock, and exactly what they would be after killing so many men in hand-to-hand combat. An enemy trapped in a burning Knightmare frame cannot gasp his last breath, nor can he reach up in a desperate last attempt to live. One certainly does not smell the stench of his emptied bowls and pooling blood.

'_Still a child,'_ he thought. _'All your antics in a Knightmare, your strategy games with men's lives, you don't see it. This, you do see. This is what a battlefield looks like.'_

The soldiers having gone ahead, he held out his hand.

"Come, my lady," he said. "Will you be left behind?" For her sake, he put on a smiling face, and grasped her forearm tightly. She let herself be dragged to her feet, and began to sheath her sword.

"It will be fine," he interjected.

"I know it will," she said. "Let me walk alone."

"As you wish"

XXXXX

The Gurren peeked into a massive tunnel. Its size was tremendous and a little terrifying. Kallen could distinctly hear the Landspinners' echoes bouncing far and deep into the cavernous mouth of the vent. Six Black Knights Burais flanked each side of the Guren as they converged to restore order within Nerv. Outside, something was creating a rhythmic thump against the GeoFront's armor, the sound resonating through the air vents that the Knightmares were traveling into.

"What the hell is that?" a solider muttered. "It doesn't sound like anything routine."

The entire group was stunned by a nails-on-chalkboard screech as something sharp drew against metal. Overhead, a hissing noise crept through the vent, along with acrid smoke. The Knightmares scattered as the ceiling broke under a deluge of frothing liquid that ran down the vent, dissolving even the hardened alloys that made up the metal walls.

"Get over there, into that corner!" Kallen yelled to the six Burais as the team came to an intersection. The acid ran down the vent. The Guren plunged its Radiant Wave arm into the plating on the side of the wall and blew apart a grated sup-vent. A molten tunnel opened up in the middle of the otherwise smooth vent floor, and the acid billowed their way down from the main vent into the side vent system. The Guren, carrying a relieved Kallen, found its way back to the Burais. The gash in the vent system deepened, and with a groan, several dozen smaller lines beneath the large vent collapsed, draining thousands of liters of the acid down into Nerv.

"Crap," Kallen said.

XXXXX

Zero's mind spun wildly. An Angel had taken the opportunity to descend out of the sky, accompanying a rain of pure, unearthly acid, and crashed into the hillsides. The thing's legs were now digging into the streets of the Settlement, and the hub of the Angel was pouring that acid into an opened Nerv air vent. Decimated Burais littered the ground, still smoking from their impromptu acid bath. Contact had been lost with the teams sent down, what with the entire Black Knights communications contingent destroyed within seconds of the Angel's landing. If anything, it was Zero's own fault for shutting Nerv down. Now, as Nerv's air thickens with poisonous fumes, he could do nothing. Through his Geass eye, the Angel shimmered with a turquoise aura, its mind humming in his like that of a busy spider, too intent on its own work to mind minor distractions like Zero.

A soldier burst into the bridge, shaking his head.

"Normal bases don't work on the acid," he reported. "Twenty kilograms of potassium hydroxide couldn't even stop a small puddle."

"I see," Zero said. "And are our personnel evacuations complete?"

"Everyone that's alive, sir," the soldier said. "But, there's not many."

"Give me the full report later," Zero said. "Dismissed"

"Yes, sir"

The Britannian command would probably not make it back in time, if at all. The twenty Guren ADVANCE Mass Production types were on par with the ability of the original Guren, with long ranged options as well. Caught off-guard and softened up first by a sakuradite explosion, it would be hard for the Britannian forces to destroy them all before the brainwashed terrorists took down the entire fleet.

'_Did I make a miscalculation?'_

The Angel buckled, and leapt off of the ground. Its legs folded together, and wings of light protruded from them. Almost like a flying saucer, it spun through the air like an oversized, deadly Frisbee with wings. The air around it boomed as the thing stopped, reversed direction and sprayed acid all over the city beneath it. It paused, seemingly surveying its work, and then began spraying other portions of the city, each time stopping to examine its handiwork and then proceeding to the next area to be destroyed. Zero's hand shot to his head as the creature cried out in a strangely sentient way, with an emotion one might associate with surprised recognition, and launched upwards. At the same time, the radar operator aboard the Black Knights command vehicle yelled.

"Knightmare frame, approaching from seven o'clock, it's coming at three times the normal speed of a carrier!"

The Angel disappeared into the clouds. Moments later, shots of acid stabbed the air around a cream-and-gold Knightmare with light red wings, which evaded, barrel rolled and dove away. It was recognizable as the Lancelot, with certain upgrades, but the Lancelot had by now been painted in Asuka Langley's colors. This was a new machine.

The new Lancelot's armor was heavily reinforced with large pods and a pair of maneuvering rockets with their nozzles pointing sideways. The sides of the pods slid open, revealing rows and rows of tiny missiles. The rockets burst to life on both sides, stopping the Lancelot's sideways motion, and the Knightmare shot upwards, vaulting over the Angel. The missiles opened up, streams of rocket exhaust hiding the entirety of the Lancelot, and the Angel was buried in a mountain of explosions which did nothing to damage it. The Lancelot's pods purged along with the presumably spent rockets. The Knightmare now had only a long, peculiar rifle. It hovered around the Angel, dodging acid bursts and pumping yellowish beams into the Angel's legs.

"_Black Knights contingent, do you read?"_ the pilot said. Lelouch's eyes bulged.

"_This is Major Suzaku Kururugi of Her Highness Princess Euphemia's Guard Regiment. Move away from this area immediately! I repeat, withdraw!"_

Suzaku…Kururugi

Was back

**End Stage XVI**


	17. After

Code Evangelion

**Stage XVII: After**

As Langley's blood-drenched hands dragged Shinji away from Ashford Academy, his mind blanked out. First, an Angel had dropped out of the air without his being summoned by Nerv. Then, after almost a half hour of mass panic in the Settlement, a half-wrecked Burai crashed into Ashford Academy, dislodging a half-insane Asuka Langley, breathing through a coattail and dripping blood everywhere she walked—not her own blood, apparently. Now, instead of heading to Nerv, they were racing away to the city's edge. He did not believe Langley capable of running in the face of battle, and apparently she hadn't. The Burai's energy filler was nearly depleted when it stopped in front of the opening to an Evangelion launch pad. Slowly, Langley let go of the controls.

"Um, milady, what exactly are we doing?" Shinji asked tentatively. She did not answer. The stench of bodily fluids made the Burai dank. Ironically, the girl that was raised in corsets and floor-length dresses didn't mind a filthy room as much as the lowly former laborer. The cockpit block slid open.

"Get out," she said. The Burai knelt, and its energy filler died. For several minutes, Shinji waited at the foot of the Knightmare, but she did not appear. Then, suddenly, she charged out of the cockpit like a madwoman, tripped and fell from the Burai's back. His body almost moving on its own, Shinji found himself underneath her. She was shaking, breathing hard, and spat out an apparently chewed-to-bits wad of cloth. Underneath the ragged coat, her own blood was seeping through a piece of bandage on her side. Her pupils were shrunken to the size of peas, her hair ragged. Suddenly, her hand shot up and grabbed Shinji by the throat. He was lifted off the ground, feet kicking as her fingers strangled the life out of him. As suddenly as it begun, it ended as the girl switched to using his shirtfront and a handlebar, and not his windpipe.

"If…I know that woman," she whispered hoarsely. "She will send the Evas out this way. I've killed enough Disturbers for the launch system to run. This pad, it's out of range of the Disturbers. Get in your machine when it arrives, and you better not get in my way."

Gone were the trappings of high society, politeness, the genteel mask of a lady. She was haunted, an animal cornered by a tiger, her cubs huddling under her. The Evangelion launch shaft ground open.

XXXXX

Zero's hand clenched his forehead. A severe migraine was an understatement; the slow roasting of his brain was a more apt description. The Angel was crying out everywhere, looking for something. His Geass wavered into a faraway mirage under the otherworldly creature's godlike mind. Abruptly, he stormed from the command center, into his office onboard, shut the door, and shrieked in agony. _It_ was drilling into his skull, blinding his Geass eye. Tears broke off the contact lens. As he stumbled into the bathroom, he looked up. His eye was alight with a vermillion shine.

"STOP IT!"

Hairline cracks raced along the surface of the glass. The vermillion glow bounced back, and his head exploded in a blinding light. Unconscious, Zero, Lelouch li Britannia, Lelouch Lamprouge, Nunnally's older brother, a student of Ashford Academy, a Britannian schoolboy, someone, something, a shadow upon the fabric of time, crumpled.

The pain faded. The being lying on the floor faded into a relieved sleep, in the comfortable blackness of eternal night, like a babe in the womb.

The command car rumbled, bounced off of the ground, and overturned as giant shockwaves liquefied the surface. Surprised Black Knights members fell into heaps on top of one another as something red shot past, took off from the ground and disappeared into the clouds. Moments later, the Lancelot tumbled away, spinning, and a corner of the Angel dipped out of its cloud cover. C.C. found a pair of binoculars. Her senses were ablaze with two minds in the air, as opposed to the single Angel. The first was, of course, the Angel, in its mighty serenity, seeking something indescribable. The second was…incomprehensible—less clear than the Angel's, to C.C. Its goal was clear—to protect something within itself, to lash out, but what C.C. could not understand was the pure amount of affection that emanated from the roaring beast atop the Angel, tearing its flesh into shreds and digging through the body with one of the Angel's own severed limbs. If one could formulate an analogy, it would be that of a raging mother bear.

"Odd," she said. The Angel crashed into a hillside, glowing octagons firing from the Evangelion on its back. The side of the hill was instantly wiped clean by the force of the impact. The pair struck the side of the multilayered Settlement, ripping the city asunder, as if it was built from cardboard and not solid metal and concrete. It was difficult to follow the Evangelion, but it was discernible as Unit 02 from the coloring. Then, it stopped. The battery had probably run dry.

"Well, that's not good," she said casually. Perhaps she will use this break in the action to check on Lelouch, whom she knew to be in a critical condition, but honestly, what she was observing was too interesting. She felt a bit of sympathy for her collaborator, but not all that much. An eternal witch risked an eternity of pain for bonding with mortal humans.

XXXXX

It wasn't working.

Asuka Langley threw her fists against the controls of Unit 02, bellowing for her power to come back. What was the use of a machine that cost enough to bankrupt a country, if it didn't even work past a minute? The LCL was cloying, thick and dank from her body. Desperate, she tore the handles back and forth, hard-trained muscles pumping away without restraint.

A loud crack and the handles broke loose. Her head shot forwards, struck the enclosed seat, and her forehead spewed its own blood to join the mix.

"Fucking…cheap…piece…of…shit…" she whispered.

_A heartbeat_

_And another_

_Another one joined the rest. It sped up. A dot appeared in her field of view, grew into a rippling pool, burst into violet-and-red light. There was a bird, a sharp-winged, strange creature, and she was in a yellow summer dress, standing in a garden. An impossibly gigantic figure towered over her, holding out its hand. The bird handed in it, nursing its sharply geometric wings. The little girl looked into the being's seven eyes, and smiled wide._

"_Mama!"_

_The figure smoothed back the girl's hair._

"_Mama, let me see it!" she squealed._

"_Do you want it, then?" the voice said in a faint echo._

"_Yes, Mama!"_

"_Do you want this power?"_

"_Uh-huh, Mama!"_

_The figure seemed to smile, though it had no mouth. It pinned the bird to the girl's hair. She giggled._

"_Are you satisfied?"_

_Sound ceased to exist for a microsecond, or an eternity. The figure nodded._

"_I see. That's good."_

XXXXX

30 Days after the invasion of Nerv

From the balcony of Ashford Academy, Shinji stared, depressed out at the rainy sky. Unit 02's bent figure was still not removed from the city center, or, more precisely, the city's ragged remains. Langley was missing, still stuck in the Evangelion's Entry Plug. Expectations were low that she would survive for this long, unless the Eva was providing nutrition and waste extraction, which it has not been designed to do. The city itself was devastated. Even after her batteries ran dry, Unit 02 went berserk, tearing apart the Angel and then…

Shinji shuddered. She ate the Angel. It was a horrible scene. The Angel's legs poked futilely at Unit 02 while the Evangelion scraped the Angel's shell dry. The carnage's result was a city left devastated. Nerv was shuttered, the Evangelions locked down. On top of that, Lamprouge seems to have been injured. To get out of the way of his family matters, Shinji had removed himself. Ryoji Kaji, Langley's butler, gave him permission to stay at the country house where he and Langley had trained for their synchronized attack. He glanced back. His things were packed into three suitcases. Nunnally was at the hospital with her brother. There was no need for delay; the Nerv Section 2 agents sent to escort him were ready to lead him away.

Public outcry hadn't lasted long, but it was clear that people needed a scapegoat. With a sinking heart, Shinji realized that Langley would probably be the victim. It was too obvious; she, after all, had singlehandedly wrecked three quarters of the Settlement. It wasn't really her fault—Unit 02 had gone berserk, after all, but it didn't matter; no one would care.

Suddenly, the new-car smell that permeated every Nerv vehicle bothered him. He tried to crank down a window. It was locked, as expected. They were speeding past Unit 02. Her form was covered in a giant tarpaulin, and a circular area half a kilometer in radius was cordoned off. Shinji buried his face in his backpack of daily essentials. Classical rock drummed in his ear from the SDAT music player that he always carried. The month was lethargic, worrisome, and a little painful. He tried to understand what it was about Langley that made her so important to him, besides the obvious. Sure, beauty, if one was to throw a shallow reason out. Sexual attraction was a given. She was dependable in a fight, a good comrade to have. Despite what von Stuhl said about her, Shinji didn't feel much hostility from her end. Perhaps more would show if they were together more often than a measly few hours every few days. Shinji had to admit, he missed the girl.

XXXXX

C.C. lowered the brim of her hat. Lelouch was wrapped in a heavy blanket, propped up in his hospital bed.

"Well? Aren't you going to talk?"

He made an annoyed sound.

"You'll be pleased to know that your ability to use Geass has not been majorly compromised. However,"

She reached over and touched his head again.

"It will take a while to recover."

"I see," he said, glumly fingering the blanket.

"So, Lelouch, how are you feeling?" she asked.

"What about how I feel?" he asked sourly.

"Well, you _are_ my accomplice," she said. "Why should I not care how you feel?"

He scratched his head, not speaking. After a few minutes, he found a relatively neutral subject.

"And how are the Black Knights doing without me?" he inquired. "Is everything proceeding according to plan?"

"Yes; the public believes that you were injured in battle, which in a way is true. Your subordinates were told that you had a hidden, undisclosed condition which led to your collapse, in addition to overwork."

He chuckled a little, breaking his stoically pessimistic mood.

"Funny; now that you mention it, I do feel a little over worked."

He flicked his hand dismissively.

"Perhaps I will take a vacation. Oh, and tell our cameraman to make sure that _that video_ is properly leaked."

XXXXX

7 days later

The Entry Plug broke open. LCL rushed out, flooding the floor of the Cage. In the dim backup lighting, a slim figure drifted in the liquid left in the Plug. She was in a yellow dress, with a tiny origami bird pinned to her hair. As the Nerv hospital crew hurried the girl onto a stretcher, a contingent of Britannian Marines surrounded the cart. The girl was swiftly handcuffed over the loud protest of the doctors, and the soldiers formed ranks around the medical personnel.

"Lady Asuka Langley," Henry Langley said from beneath his military police uniform. "If you are indeed her, you will confirm your identity by silent acknowledgement."

A moment passed. The comatose girl stayed quiet. The man forced down a smile.

"Thank you. Lady Langley, Knight of Two of the Holy Britannian Empire, you are hereby charged with criminal negligence and misuse of the Evangelion resulting in complete destruction to the Tokyo Settlement, as well as death or injury of approximately two thousand, seven hundred Britannian citizens and a large number of Elevens. Your property is forfeit and will be auctioned to pay for the losses of your creditors. You are also charged with failure to comply with direct orders to abandon your Evangelion, insubordination and mutiny, and impediment of justice. Under Britannian law, in consideration of your achievements, you will not be tried as a minor."

He paused to catch his breath.

"Do you plead guilty or not guilty to the above charges? Silence acknowledges full guilt in this matter and indicates that you waive your right to an attorney."

LCL silently dripped onto the floor. The nurses squirmed behind the wall of burly Marines.

"In that case, you are hereby stripped of your rank and name, dishonorably discharged from the service of his Imperial Majesty Charles zi Britannia, and sentenced to death. The duty of executioner will be allotted to the highest ranking officer present."

He turned to the Marines.

"I am Henry of Langley, eldest son of the Archduke of Langley, heir to his Estates, senior nobleman of the Court, a member of Parliament and Lieutenant Major of the Military Police. Is there any here with higher rank than I?"

The men stayed silent. A soft breath escaped Asuka's mouth. Henry pulled out his service pistol.

"Very well; the cost of execution will be added to your account. Is there a final statement, Miss Asuka _Soryu_?"

A small cough; the girl smiled, as if in a dream.

"Ma…ma," she whispered. Henry snorted.

"Note down: the last statement of Asuka Soryu is: 'mama.'"

He raised the pistol to her forehead.

"We hereby commence the execution of Miss Asuka Soryu, daughter of the deceased Dr. Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, PhD, MD, formerly known as Langley, on this day September twenty-first, in the two thousand and fifteenth year of our glorious Empire."

**End Stage XVII**


	18. In the Shadow of Memory

Code Evangelion

**Stage XVIII: In the Shadow of Memory**

"…and of course I did not place the Geass on the Nerv personnel necessary to run daily operations, of course."

Lelouch concluded his lecture and sipped his tea. C.C. fingered a video disk in her hand.

"And you have leaked the video of Langley's execution onto the internet?"

"Internet, press, human rights organizations," Lelouch said drily. "Henry Langley was a lost cause from the beginning. Only now is he of any use to somebody."

"Useful, but not to himself, I suspect?" C.C. asked. Lelouch set his tea down and wiped his mouth.

"No, unless _that man_ has changed since the last time I saw him."

XXXXX

"_Entry Plug approaching critical depth"_

"_Initiating primary contact"_

"_Initiating secondary contact"_

"_Pilot synchro-graph, stable; all circuits are operational. Activating Core A-10 connections"_

Slowly, Shinji Ikari opened his eyes. The Entry Plug of Unit 02 made him shudder. Everything felt as clammy as dead flesh. The Plug smelled even worse of blood than Unit 01's. It smelled…like Langley.

Odd; he never smelled Langley; he would not have been permitted to come so close, but it felt like her.

"_Ikari?"_

Monitoring devices went ballistic as the synchro-graph shot backwards and circuits broke down.

"_Pulses are reversing! The Eva is rejecting control signals! All communication with the Entry Plug has been lost!"_

"Abort the experiment!" Misato yelled. "Sever power supply!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

The Umbilical Cable burst out of Unit 02's back. During testing, Evangelions were not equipped with charged internal batteries, and haven't, since the accident involving Unit 00 going berserk during testing.

"It's not stopping!"

"What?" Misato exclaimed. "But there's no power supply!"

"I'm reading external power from the Eva!" Maya replied, frantically checking the Umbilical Cable. "But there's no power flow from the reactor to the Cable in this testing site!"

"Nonsense; if there's no power flow, how can there be External Power?"

Maya shook her head in wonder.

"I don't know, ma'am, but the Eva is operating with no power again!"

"And what about the pilot," Misato demanded. "Do we have his status?"

"None, ma'am; all the monitors are being disrupted, but…"

She tapped some keys furiously.

"His synch ratio is _almost four hundred percent_! How is that even possible? This is Asuka Langley's Eva! Even if it was configured for him, he still shouldn't get synch scores that are even close to this range!"

"Unless the synch meter is malfunctioning, which it could be, considering all our other problems; then I suppose that the Eva could be…_trying_ to merge with him?"

Misato turned to Ritsuko, who looked a little constipated.

"It is a possibility," she replied. "We don't know everything about the Evangelions."

"Didn't we create them?" Misato snapped. "So why is it that we do not know everything about them?"

Ritsuko glanced around the room. All of the Nerv technicians focused on what they were doing, without paying much attention to the two senior officers.

"I do not have time to explain," Ritsuko said darkly. "Right now, we have to keep Shinji's synch ratio under 400%, or else…"

"Or _what_ will happen, Ritsuko?" Misato demanded. "Will the thing that happened to _Yui Ikari_ occur again?"

"That's enough out of you!" Ritsuko roared. "Ibuki, try to revert connection flow to normal; use the seventh-level backdoor entry. Are we getting a response yet?"

"N…not yet," Maya replied, a little timidly. "The Core isn't making contact with the computer system; it's making all decisions on its own."

"And how is it able to do that?" Misato interjected. "Is it even sentient? Shouldn't the computer be the Eva's brain?"

"It…is somewhat sentient," Ritsuko said, breaking a moment of silence. "But it shouldn't have the ability to operate its own computer systems; we aren't fools. The Eva has gained a new level of awareness."

"And how would it do that?"

"Contact…" Maya whispered. Ritsuko's eyes bulged in anger at the slip-up.

"Get me…synch ratio records…from the Evangelion's black box," she roared. "_Do it now!_"

XXXXX

"_Ikari, is that you?" the voice asked. In the soft white glow of the void, Shinji saw flapping hair part to reveal a curiously serene face._

"_Lady Langley? What are you doing in Unit 02?"_

"_Isn't that a silly question? This is _my_ Eva."_

_He swam towards her, pawing the gelatinous world and parting wisps of white matter that coiled in cotton-candy clumps around them. She turned to face him. With great surprise, he noticed that she was stark naked, drifting in the eddying currents of the strange world. She did not seem to notice. Her eyes were level and emotionless, even colder than Rei, who at least showed an underlying humanity._

"_I should ask _you_ that question myself," she said. "What are you doing in _my Eva_?"_

_A thought escaped her, snagged onto Shinji's ear, and wriggled itself inside._

'_Well, what am I doing in _this_ part of an Eva?'_

_Everything was mush, incorporeal and incomprehensible. Langley's annoyance bubbled over Shinji's mind. She was looking for something concrete, too._

_He was holding a teacup, he realized. They were sitting on the precipice of a cliff, overlooking the crashing ocean and a dull, red sun. She sat across from him, in a tight corset dress emblazoned with a golden eagle, wearing a semi-veiled, bejeweled headdress. Her eyes were closed as she took in the taste of her tea. One eye slid open beneath a false eyebrow sparkling with strange gem fragments. She looked like a being out of fantasy. The waves lapped a lighthouse crusted over with barnacles and seaweed. In the background, a bell tolled._

"_Well, Ikari? Aren't you going to answer me?" she asked, closing her eyes again and taking another sip of tea. Confused, he did not attempt to answer. The saucer clinked as she set it down. A slender tube-shaped bracelet formed by thin gold chains clamping small rubies dangled in the wind. She looked about, her question put to the side for the time being. Her lips trembled._

"_Western Virginia…" she whispered. "I haven't been here since…"_

_She trailed off, looking about anxiously._

"_Where are we, Lady Langley?" Shinji asked. She shrugged, breathing a little heavily._

"_I don't know."_

_She rose, lifting the hem of her skirt, and made her way up a rickety old staircase built into the side of the cliff. Shinji followed dutifully. Her unease grew like a dark, repressive aura, making her radiant beauty just a shade duller. The dress was split down the back. The movement of tightly bound muscles beneath fragile skin mesmerized Shinji's eyes. Her hair was bound into a neat bun beneath the headdress that carried a hint of the majesty of an ancient Empress from the East. When they reached an intersection, Langley stopped._

"_It can't be…" she muttered. Whispery voices came from the glade of trees up ahead. Her hands clenched in their white gloves. A tall, widely built man strolled out of the glade, hand in hand with a young girl of about ten or eleven. Langley's breath caught. The little girl was in the exact same outfit as she was, wreathed in exquisite beauty, and the man…Shinji's mouth fell open. Charles zi Britannia smiled down at the younger version of Langley. The older version hissed in revulsion._

"_No!" she yelled. "Get away from him!" Running, she tried to wrest the girl away from the Emperor of Britannia. Her hands shot through them. Her eyes widened and brimmed with tears._

"_No…"_

_She collapsed to her knees as the girl and the Emperor strode through Shinji and stopped nest to a blooming rose garden. The man knelt by the girl, fairly beaming down at her as she petted the blooms._

"_Aren't they pretty, Miss Langley?" he said._

"_Yes, my Lord," the girl answered. "Exquisite."_

"_Would you like one?"_

_The older Langley lurched to her feet with a dismal cry. Her lashes bent under the weight of fat teardrops that hung onto each fiber. Her hands beat the immaterial dream with futility._

"_I would not presume to intrude so far on your Majesty's hospitality," the little girl replied. "But that would be lovely."_

_Smiling, the Emperor snipped off a bud, and put it in the girl's hair, his hand traveling down her cheek, with two fingers stroking a stray strand. The little girl blinked._

"_Thank you, your Majesty," she said. The Emperor's smile grew. His hands wrapped around the girl, lifting her up in his arms. She gave a little squeak, and he laughed heartily._

"_Come, little one, no need to be so formal," he said. The older Langley turned away, frantically looking for a way out. She ran through the trees, and burst out of the bushes, ending exactly where she began, unable to run away from the scene. It seemed to be her past._

_Shinji took a knee next to the older Langley, looking with concern into her stricken face._

"_Don't," she said, half to him, half to the world. "I don't want to think about it!"_

"_Well, what is it?" he asked, confused. The Emperor of Britannia was acting like an old, albeit odd, gentleman of an uncle, lavishing so much of his attention on her that even a clueless Shinji could tell that it was a good thing._

"_I know what you are assuming," the older Langley said, putting her hands over her temples. "Stop it, you damn fool! Get out of my Eva! Leave me to be! Shut it off!"_

_The conversation between the Emperor and Langley grew louder, until a heated argument reached the observers' ears. The older Langley gasped in anguish._

"_Wait, your Majesty, what are you doing?" a terrified child's voice came from the direction of the younger Langley._

"_Don't you understand me, Asuka? Don't you understand my pain?" the Emperor was bellowing. "Oh! You were just like Marianne! Just like her! Two peas in a shell! Why must you continue to deny me my dreams? Come back to me!"_

_The little girl's screams were accompanied by ripping of some cloth. The little headdress hung on a tree as a garter belt clinked against the gravel path. The Emperor's breathing grew heavy and labored while the little girl stopped screaming, and whimpered._

"_Don't you worry," the man moaned. "I'll make you an Empress! You'll have anything you want; _anything_! Just keep being my little Marianne…"_

_The little girl shrieked in pain. A small hand reached out of the bushes, groping for something to latch on to. The Emperor grabbed it and held it to himself. Shinji's mouth gaped as slick, wet plopping sounds accompanied each and every sob. The older Asuka clamped her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth. Gradually, the little girl stopped screaming. The man groaned, and sighed in relief. The older Asuka retched emptily, hands covering her body almost by instinct. The Emperor rose from the bushes, buttoned his pants, and looked down at the girl's body._

"_But you're not Marianne," he said with a hint of regret. "Perhaps I can make you more like her, but…in the end, you're only like her in a Knightmare."_

_He walked away rather nonchalantly for what he had just done. Twenty or so minutes passed before the girl crawled out of the bush, trying to hide herself with the scraps of rags that the dress had become. She reached down, a young mind inexperienced with the ways of the world. The rose bud Charles had given her was still stuck in her mane of tangled hair. Shinji turned away. Happiness turned to horror in an instant so miniscule that Shinji's comprehension still reeled at the thought. The older Asuka was staring into her own hand, as if feeling the pain over again. The scene wavered. The older Asuka turned her eyes._

"_He came back a few times after that," she said calmly. "He seemed to think that because I piloted a Ganymede like Empress Marianne, I must somehow be another version of her, a woman God sent to replace the one he lost."_

_She grimaced._

"_And soon after he gave me the post of Knight of Two, he forgot about me, stopped visiting my room. I was cast off, a toy that was no longer entertaining to him."_

_Tears filled the blue eyes that had first pierced through Shinji in a hill side rice paddy. She looked him over._

"_You should not have seen that," she said._

_She gathered herself together, muttering, "This is all in the past; I've moved on," while Shinji looked on in shock._

"_Well," he said. "He couldn't just…do this to you, could he?"_

_She threw her head back and laughed bitterly._

"_Oh, you idiot," she said, "Do you think that this wouldn't have been covered up? He showered the Langleys with everything they could have wanted." she turned her back to him and began to walk away._

"_Wait!" he yelled after her with some bravado. "Are you just going to go? Aren't you going to…"_

"_What?" she asked bitterly. "What _can_ I do?"_

XXXXX

Lelouch Lamprouge could do anything. Operate a huge underground terror network, openly fighting the world's greatest army, maneuvering around the world from behind the shadows of Zero's mask were no problems for him.

But his skinny arms screamed in protest beneath a pair of tiny dumbbells. Exhausted, he dropped the little things beside the bench and huffed. Suzaku Kururugi chuckled at his friend's expense, and picked up one of the dumbbells with one hand, tossing it back and forth while leaning into his wheelchair. Lelouch gritted his teeth in anguish.

"What's this, Lelouch? Come on, it's not a twenty _kilogram _weight; it's just twenty _pounds_! These weights are always in pounds. Don't tell me you can't even lift twenty _pounds_."

"You're having too much fun, Suzaku," Lelouch growled.

"Can't help it, Lelouch," Suzaku said. "President Milly's orders"

"Of all the things Shirley could have picked to punish me…" he shuddered.

"She knows you pretty well," Suzaku said. "Come on, it's leg press time."

Clenching his teeth, Lelouch allowed himself to be led to the next workout. As punishment for his behavior, he was obligated to do something for Shirley, whatever she asked. Milly had _insisted_. Of all things, Shirley demanded that Suzaku, a career soldier, give Lelouch a full, three week workout course. Of all the things she could have demanded…it was this.

"Suzaku, where are you living now?" he asked with fake disinterest. It wasn't as if he did not already know.

"I rent a room. Why?"

"The Ikari boy left," Lelouch said. "How would you like to live with us? I'm sure Nunnally would be delighted." He gave the boy a small smile.

"It's going to be better than living alone, right?"

Suzaku's hand paused on the leg press. He looked back at Lelouch.

"It'll be fine," Lelouch continued. "You'll be welcome there."

Suzaku nodded.

"It…wouldn't be a problem, would it?"

Lelouch laughed.

"We're friends, right? Friends watch out for one another. You'll be fine," he said. "Move in whenever you'd like."

On a silent side note to himself, he remarked, _'And stay next to Nunnally. Protect her, Suzaku!'_

Insurance is always good.

XXXXX

Machines surrounded the depths of the Nerv base. Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko Akagi were the only ones present, the only ones outside a large, translucent tube of orange liquid, where Rei Ayanami floated in a disconcerting, suspended state.

"Well, Ritsuko?" Gendo said. "Don't you have something to say to me?"

His tone was as cold as it always was. Ritsuko bristled, making Gendo smirk.

"If not, then I have other business to attend to," he said.

"Don't be impatient," Ritsuko admonished. "You know as well as I do what we came here to discuss."

"Of course; please, do continue," Gendo baited her on. "I came expecting a detailed report on that subject matter."

"If you so insist," Ritsuko said, annoyed. "The synchronization data in Unit 02 showed that the late Lady Langley's synchronization ratio was far beyond four hundred per cent, and the ego barrier accordingly disappeared. In effect, she was in a state of Contact with the Evangelion."

She handed Gendo a slip of paper. He peered at it, and his eyebrows rose. Ritsuko caught the comprehension on his face with some confusion. Logically, he should not have been able to understand her data.

"Do you understand what this means?" Ritsuko asked.

"Perfectly," he said. "You are dismissed, Ritsuko Akagi. Thank you for your excellent work in this matter. I will finish with Rei here." Waving his hand, he signaled the end of the need for her presence. Though angry, she had no choice but to make her exit. Once she was gone, Rei opened her eyes.

"Commander," she said.

"What is it, Rei?"

"Unit 02 has been removed from Area 11?"

"Yes," Gendo said. "It is as we expected."

"In that case, will you activate Unit 07?" she asked. "If Britannia decides to use Unit 02 against Nerv"

Gendo tapped the side of the tube absentmindedly. Inside, Rei's eyes followed his movements. He hummed to himself while he worked on the machines operating inside Rei's tube.

"It would be foolish of him to try," he concluded. "Unless he can get Asuka Langley to rise from the grave, there is no way for him to activate Unit 02 with its current Core. Creating a new set of Core and pilot will take years."

"The lady's body was transported to the homeland under full cryogenic refrigeration," Rei pointed out. "It may be possible that he has found a way…"

"Found a way to raise the dead?" Gendo snapped, suddenly agitated; hungry, Rei thought, as if he himself had someone he would like to raise from the grave. Then, the man composed himself and laughed off the prospect.

"I am disappointed in you, Rei," he said darkly. "The dead are dead…forever. They are lost to us. No miracle can bring them back."

His hand paused on the control panel.

"In any case, be ready if I need you for Unit 07," he said.

"Yes, Commander"

XXXXX

The mattress in Lelouch's bedroom was not the luxuriant type. It was ordinary, with ordinary, creaky springs that squealed when C.C. sat down next to him.

"Lelouch," she called. "Are you going to wake up?"

"It's Saturday," he groaned. "Leave me alone, C.C."

The girl snickered, flinging off the covers.

"You are quite the lazy terrorist, Mr. Lamprouge," she said. "Will you wake up now?"

"C.C., I left you in charge of the Black Knights," he grumbled. "I'm tired."

"Will will sleep, even if there is an evacuation order for all residents within fifteen blocks of Nerv?"

"I…what did you say?"

He leapt out of bed and ripped open the blinds. The rings protested feebly as they clanked across their rails. Outside, neat lines of vehicles proceeded to leave the center of the city. This time, it seems that civil authorities were capable of dealing with crises by evacuating everything in a reasonable, orderly way. From an Evangelion launcher, smoke was billowing out. Explosions seemed to have triggered purging in sections of the city. Underground, a battle was waging.

"What's going on?" he demanded. "Damn it, tell me!"

"The Angel that Nerv captured," C.C. said drily. "It woke up, that's all."

"Mobilize," Lelouch said simply. "Get our men out there _first_. Contact Katsuragi and Cornelia; I have to go."

Tired no longer, he sprang towards the bathroom while C.C. turned her nose, but nevertheless did as she was told. Ten minutes later, a motorbike was hurtling through the vacant streets. The police, focused on their city's worth of charges, paid no heed to the city that lay behind them. Without harassment, Lelouch pulled into a vacant lot, where he clambered up the steps to some financial institution. The building was on sale, he noted. Squeezing into the lobby, he found that the elevators were still on. Gladly, he took one to the hundredth floor. Peering out of a window, he scanned the horizon. Smoke was still billowing out of the same launch pad, but now another one was beginning to open. The familiar klaxon hailed the arrival of a pair of rails, and the shuddering grating of metal upon metal brought the launch platform to ground level, discharging an incomprehensible mass of slimy-looking Angelic tentacles wrapped around Eva Unit 01. The entire ball rolled through the streets, crushing blocks' worth of the Settlement. Metallic screams came from the Eva's armor, which the Angel seemed to be trying to cut through with some sort of saw-arm. The Eva was trying to stab at the Angel with its knife, but the Angel's hide refused to yield. A jagged shower of blood spurted from Unit 01's midriff, where the Angel was making progress through armor and A.T. Field. Five Burais rounded a corner and let loose a clip of shells from their heavy cannons, modified Sutherland armaments. Nerv's Jet-VTOL fighters circled just above reach of the tentacles, strafing down with their chain guns. The Angel thrashed, nearly knocking a fighter out of midair and causing the Burais to flee. The Eva smashed both hands into the Angel, forcing it off. The knife's blade jammed into the arm sawing through Unit 01's midsection and broke. The arm rippled, slapped Eva Unit 01 away, and gashed the inside of the forearm. At that moment, the Umbilical Cable retracted, pulling Unit 01 out of reach of a strike that sank through the first layer of the Settlement. Separated, the combatants sized each other up. The Angel was a cephalopod with a pair of giant stalks instead of eyes. Its gaping maw was a ribbed cavern, much like the mouth of a whale-shark, except for the ring of fangs lining the rim of the mouth. It scurried along its tentacles, giving the impression of a squid out of water. Warily, it backed away and squeezed into a gap between two buildings, where neither the Eva nor the military hardware could give chase. Unit 01 climbed up shakily and backed off behind cover as well. A wall popped out, revealing a weapons cache with a rifle. Retrieving the gun, Unit 01 ducked beneath a bridge connecting two skyscrapers and went out of sight.

Lelouch's eyes scanned the rows of buildings, and his fingers tapped along the window ledge. His eyes fell upon a particularly artistic building with a dark, overhanging protrusion, as well as a deep hole dug into the front, where a set of stairs led down to a subterranean level. Several trenches, perhaps artistic impressions of a tree's roots—what these modern artists think, Lelouch will never know—jutted out in every direction. He smiled, and found his secure link cell phone.

"This is Zero," he said to an unlisted number. "Here are your instructions; listen carefully…"

**End Stage XVIII**


	19. Webs

Code Evangelion

**Stage XVIV: Webs**

"Shinji, can you move?" Misato roared. Shinji ignored her and spat a wad of phlegm and blood into the LCL, and the filters instantly sucked it away. The Angel was moving like a squid, squeezing through gaps and cracks with liquid grace. Nerv's excavation had reduced its body mass greatly, paradoxically helping it navigate tight niches even better. Unit 01 was heavily damaged at the midsection, where the Angel's cutting arm had gone through the armor. It was becoming difficult for him to move.

"It's bad," Hyuga interjected. "There are feedback errors from 70% of the control system; the spinal cord must have sustained damage. The MAGI recommend that we lower the synch ratio to fifty percent."

"Retrieve Unit 01," Misato ordered. "Initiate emergency repairs and have Unit 00 hold defensive position; continue tracking the Angel."

A launch pad descended into the ground, carrying Unit 01 with it, bloody and ragged. As mechanics swarmed to initiate repairs, Unit 00 shot out of the Cage. Shinji was helped out, scrubbed dry and handed a bottle of water. He glanced upwards, feeling an inexorable sense of helplessness.

'_I wish Langley was here,' _he thought with a pang.

XXXXX

As Lelouch had expected, the Angel took refuge in the building he had singled out. It was close, easy to get into while under cover, and provided a great deal of cover itself. To the simple intelligence controlling an Angel, it must seem obvious.

Lelouch mentally kicked himself. The Angel was in no way simple, just inexperienced tactically. He shivered, remembering the power of an Angel's mind. Shaking himself off, he resumed concentration on the battle at hand. The Angel had entered the exact place where he wanted it to be.

"Kallen," he said. "Does Nerv confirm A.T. Field neutralization?"

"Not yet," she replied. "Unit 01 retreated, and Unit 00 is approaching, sir."

"Good; in that case, postpone the plan until neutralization is confirmed. Can you do that?"

"Yes, sir," Kallen replied.

"Kallen"

"What is it, sir?"

"Don't die; that's an order."

"Understood"

Beneath the building, the Guren's arm was stuck through an opened door, pointing out at the sliding mass of the Angel that approached them. With all power down, the six Burais and the Guren made for an almost invisible group. The Angel, pestered as it was by Nerv's VTOLs, paid them no heed. It lashed out with its arm, ripping apart the façade of a building and missing Unit 00 by quite a distance. Kallen thought that it was rather like a fish—or, to be more precise, an oddly oversized octopus—out of water. Unit 00 could not bring its heavy weaponry to bear in the heart of the fragile Settlement, and was forced to instead engage in close range with a large harpoon of sorts, a weapon ironically appropriate for the occasion. Dodging a tentacle, Unit 00 swiped the harpoon at the Angel. The blade struck flesh but bounced off easily, and the jab that followed did more damage to the harpoon than to the Angel.

"A.T. Field wave space flat lining; neutralization in three…two…"

Kallen gripped the modified, single-burst Radiant Wave Surge arm, whose business end was all but touching the Angel. It was a spare arm, modified to fire all the power of fifteen energy fillers attached to it, thickly insulated and only available for one shot, after which the Guren must immediately purge the arm to avoid being caught up in the inevitable explosion. To take advantage of the fact, armor-piercing munitions have been mounted along the front of the arm, with charges buried inside. When the arm overheated, it became an instant shotgun as well.

"Go!" she screamed, and pulled the trigger. The arm's parts shrieked as voltage coursed through them. The Angel jumped too late, and the crimson, evil looking ball of energy lit up the sky. The Guren lurched as explosives drove it away from the arm, an instant before it ripped a hole through nine floors' worth of building and deposited twenty molten copper rods into the burning remains of the Angel. The corpse was sizzling like an overcooked barbeque, and the Guren stumbled out of the ashes, ragged but triumphant, saved by the arm's engineers, who reinforced its sides to direct the blast forward and up. Immediately, Kallen found the main, normal arm and equipped it, Factosphere sensors spinning like a thing alive.

A Burai went through half the width of the building, hit by a whipping tentacle. An inhuman scream came from the body of the Angel, which shot out of the cove, its skin burnt and crackling, leaking a fiery liquid. Its tentacles thinned into fast whips, slicing through the air as the squid-like thing somehow flew in dizzying loops and rolls, cutting apart the Jet-VTOLs and swatting their remains down into the Settlement.

"Sir, it's not dead!" Kallen yelled. "But it's really pissed off!"

The Angel crashed through the entire Settlement, uprooting entire blocks in its frenzy. Unit 00's attempt to give chase was abruptly ended when the Angel body slammed her through the support structure of an entire section of the city, crushing Unit 00 under rubble, Angel and flaming fragments of entire financial districts. The Angel launched into the air, and then did a barrel roll and came down with a triple spin whiplash, slicing apart the platoon of Sutherlands that first arrived on the scene. The Settlement's surface rippled like the surface of the sea, the Angel swimming through it. As abruptly as it began, the frenzy died off, and the Angel once again reverted to its method of hiding. Only now, it had the entirety of the Tokyo Settlement's subterranean levels to play hide-and-seek in. Kallen blasted her way out of the lower levels of the Settlement and stood aghast at the amount of destruction some thirty seconds of rage had wrought. Out of the ground, Unit 00 struggled to her feet, broken shaft of her harpoon still clutched in her hand.

"Sir, what should we do now?" Kallen asked. Zero made no reply, but Kallen heard the distinct sound of something glass breaking. She gulped.

"Follow it," the orders came, and then the line went dead.

XXXXX

"The fact is," Hyuga concluded. "The Angel was heavily damaged by the Black Knights' weapon, but its body mass, which was still significant after our excavations, especially in the rear where Zero hit it, shielded the Core from both the heat and the munitions. As a result, it was only enraged, but not significantly harmed. In addition, having been floating in a volcano probably strengthened its skin to resist some pretty extreme conditions, as we have observed when attempting to dissect it."

He closed his binder, and fixed his glasses.

"So now what?" he asked. "Everything in this city is evacuated or destroyed. There's a very angry Angel on the loose under the Settlement and both Units 01 and 00 are severely impaired. I do not believe that there is a truly viable third option…"

"That's enough," Gendo said, cutting off the commentary. "Continue monitoring the Angel and corresponding with the various ministries involved. Send the pilots to my office as soon as they are able to. This meeting is adjourned."

Leaving his staff surprised and a little annoyed, Gendo and Fuyutsuki made their way out of the meeting room. On the way out, Gendo stopped and turned to meet their gazes.

"It is fine to feel apprehensive," he said. "Only, have faith in your commander."

With that, the two men disappeared into the hallway. Hyuga shook his head and put away his materials.

"I was planning to discuss possible stratagems and counterattack plans," he said a little petulantly. "Well, so much for that."

"He has something up his sleeve, doesn't he?" Maya said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he could pull some secret weapon out of his ass whenever he feels like it."

"It's not that," Misato said. "He's prepared, that's all…prepared against every possibility. Everything is just going according to some plan."

"I don't like it," Aoba said. "This whole thing of keeping us in the dark about what our true capacity is. We should know."

"If you want transparency, Aoba," Misato said drily. "Go somewhere else to work. Dismissed"

XXXXX

Rei's hands were extremely dainty; her grasp on Shinji's wrist was soft and almost enjoyable, despite being vice-like. She was dragging him through a narrow passageway, down a set of stairs and into a service lift that hurtled downwards with little regard to the comfort of its passengers. Miles of rock and strange objects went by in a flash. They were shooting deep into the heart of Central Dogma, the core of the Nerv-Tokyo base. When Shinji finally staggered from the lift, Gendo Ikari was waiting for him.

"Shinji," he said. "I have a new assignment for you."

"So…so soon?" he gasped, and then retched, though he did not throw up. Gendo smirked at Shinji's moment of weakness.

"What matters it to you?" he said harshly. "You need not question, only _do_. At the end of this hallway, you will find a new Eva. As you children seem to have wrecked your old ones, it is only necessary that you be provided with a new toy." The last bit he said with especial vehemence directed towards Shinji. A pall fell between father and son.

"Are you going to question why?" Gendo asked. "Shinji, right now, there is an Angel digging through the Tokyo Settlement, destroying everything that has been rebuilt after the invasion. It is killing the progress we have made—"

"What progress?" Shinji snapped. "Is it _your_ progress or the Britannians' progress? Progress built on the graves of the Japanese? I don't care about this city; I don't care about the people in it. I just wish they'd go away! Go back to Britannia and leave us alone!"

He took a deep breath.

"Why should I do it?" he said finally. Gendo nodded.

"We have some time," he said. "Let me assuage your childish concerns. Get back into the lift."

He herded Shinji into the lift again, leaving Rei behind, and punched the last button on the list. It asked for a password, a fingerprint scan, and a card swipe. Emotionlessly, Gendo cleared the security in the lift, and it veritably fell out from beneath their feet, hurtling into the earth. Gendo stood, grasping a handrail, while Shinji gaped and tried to keep his eardrums intact as his feet lifted off of the floor. Some short time later, the sound of brakes could be heard along the sides of the lift, and the lift ground down to more bearable speeds. Shinji's eyes bore into the impenetrable wall that was his father's back. It had turned on him when he most needed support, had forgotten him he became a necessary component of some unknown grand scheme.

'_I hate him,'_ a part of Shinji thundered. _'He throws away everyone he doesn't need. He threw away his wife, his son, his country…I can…kill him right now, with my own two hands. I can end it!'_

His saner side fought hard to keep the mind, so confused and shaken by the tumbling ride, from murdering the commander of the world's most secretive and unscrupulous paramilitary organization inside the deepest bowels of his own base. The lift stopped. The doors opened up onto an utterly and amazingly alien landscape. Everywhere, monoliths stood out against a white gray surface pockmarked with small holes. It was like the surface of the moon, except for a long, ebony tunnel that led across its surface. It moved on its own, being a beltway that carried its passengers smoothly over the harsh landscape. A heavy, triple layered reinforced glass tunnel separated the humans from the outside. The end of the tunnel was yet another heavily armored blast door. Ten of them slid open after Gendo authenticated his presence.

"Do you know what happened during Second Impact?" Gendo asked.

Of course Shinji knew; everyone knew that a micrometeorite traveling at nearly the speed of light had stricken the South Pole, instantaneously destroying half of the earth. What did that have to do with what his father needed to show him? Shinji expressed his rather candidly to Gendo.

"I see," Gendo said. "It was not, however, the case. No meteorite struck Earth, not in 1999. What you are about to see is the true reason why Second Impact occurred."

The final, gigantic door unsealed itself. Shinji's eyes stretched, and his mouth gaped.

"What…is that a…what the hell is that?" he cried, taking a step back from the vast lake of…LCL that surrounded a huge, red cross with a huge, humanoid figure crucified on top of it. Its body was like marshmallow, with a purple covering for a face and seven asymmetrically placed eyes etched across a shield-like face mask. In short, it was a monster. A massive red spear of some red, twisted material was sunken deep into the figure's chest.

"The cause of Second Impact," Gendo mused. "The First Angel…the first man…"

He shifted his glasses.

"ADAM"

XXXXX

Pendragon, 0.5 kilometers beneath the Capital

Racks of neat vats were stacked atop one another, filled with orange fluid and each housing disturbingly shaped shadows. A few hundred meters beyond this was a quadruple blast door, which were just sliding closed as a heavyset man walked out of it. A technician jumped to attention and bowed.

"Majesty," he said. The man grunted in acknowledgement, hustling along a bundle in his wide cloak. Discreetly, the technician drew away from it.

"As you have requested, the necessary preparations have been made. We may proceed with the second phase at…any convenient time."

"Now would be good," Charles zi Britannia replied, drawing back his cloak. Inside, a dark head of luxurious hair flopped out, framing a delicate, if blank, face. The girl he had been carrying was naked except for a simple hospital gown, with a heavy tracking device attached to her neck. Her coal-black eyes stared balefully out at the two men. The technician nodded.

"As you wish, my Lord," he said to the man. Then, to the girl, "Come here, milady. We must complete you."

Charles mentally checked off another item on his to-do list. He watched as the girl was stuffed into a tube.

"How long will it take?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Four, perhaps five hours, sire."

"Then, I will return in four," Charles said. "Carry on."

"Yes, sire"

In time, Charles found himself atop the tallest tower of the imperial palace. His heart beat at precisely the same rate as always, but he felt a sense of victory slip to his lips. He had done it; done what gods and men could not. He had cheated Thanatos of his prize. Now, all that remained was to put that prize to use.

Casually, he turned on a TV set to the news. Apparently, the Tokyo Settlement in Area 11 was being wrecked again, this time from the inside. Charles frowned; it was bad form for an emperor to allow an economic crisis to unfold on his watch, and with the level of destruction wrecked here…

His victory made him magnanimous. He would bail out the insurance companies, help repair the damage, and make sure that things didn't crash while they still mattered. He had three and a half hours to keep his Empire from suffering a major economic setback. For him, that was plenty of time.

He just hoped that Ikari would unveil one of his aces in the hole already. It wasn't as if Charles didn't know about the new two-seater Ikari has stashed under the carpet. He chuckled, and found the bottle of vodka that he always kept up here, where only he had access. Fiery liquor to take away any vestige of fire in his heart, and fiery it was, indeed. The almost pure alcohol burned its way down Charles' gullet. He sighed, enjoying the sensation, letting his emotions dissipate in the feel of the vodka.

A strong drink makes a stronger man.

XXXXX

Shinji tried to comprehend what he had just been told.

"Synchronize with Rei?" he asked. "As in, connect with an A-10 link?"

They were both being herded towards a sinister, dark underground citadel with almost as much protection as ADAM had. This time, however, Dr. Akagi led the way. He and Rei were wearing matching Plug Suits, of a dark, generic gray. Rei was not looking at him, and was instead doing some sort of mental exercise that, Shinji supposed, would prepare her for what was to come, but he had absolutely no idea how he was going to have to synchronize with her, not even whether or not he wanted to.

Slowly, the door opened. Inside, a giant, dark head peered out silently. Its face was cut by an eyehole with three slits, outlined in dull ochre, with its body hidden by the darkness.

"Eva Unit 07," Ritsuko said. "It has been outfitted with the U-Type equipment to reduce its size for combat underneath the Settlement. Incidentally, piloting it will be simpler as well, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem with the new two-pilot control system."

A side door hissed open

"Good luck," Ritsuko added, and without further adieu, ushered them inside.

The Plug in Unit 07 lacked space. Even when expanded, its seats felt crammed in, stuffed. He looked at Rei, who was already climbing into the rear, raised seat, the seat of the A.T. Field controller.

"Hurry," she said simply. She had practice maintaining an A.T. Field on Unit 07, he had been told. That's why she had to be the one in the back. The two of them would have to synchronize their own minds in order for Unit 07 to function. Whoever designed this thing, Shinji thought, was an idiot. What was the point of having two pilots in the same Eva? Can't they just make another normal Unit?

Rei's questioning stare drew him back into the present. Moments later, they were seated, and their A-10 Nerve Clips were clamped down by a pair of pincers from the edges of the headrest. The Plug flashed into the brilliant colors that it always made when activating, and an insistent buzz worked its way into Shinji's skull. He winced as he, Rei and the Eva's nervous systems were connected in a three-way lineup. Suddenly, he began losing his sense of _self_, and entirely foreign feelings became apparent to him, coming from Rei. His—no, _their_ legs were stiff and immobile. The Eva's legs, of course, were gone, replaced by a set of mobile wheels rocking back and forth on spring hinges. The Eva's arms had been replaced by a heavy weapon system on the right and a shield on the left, mounted with armor-piercing rockets. The weapons display appeared. The right arm's Combination Progressive Lance, its Vulcan cannons and set of missiles were ready, armed and loaded. The sixteen Sturmfaust rockets mounted under the shield, extra emergency blade, head-mounted CIWS and propellant tanks for a pair of modified Viking 5C rockets set into the mechanical legs were full.

"Weapons check, power check, propulsion check," Rei read off mechanically. "Dual-Pilot Linkup successful, maintaining mutual synchronization orate of 48.5%, Plug-Unit synchronization at 44.7%; ratios are insufficient for sortie. Pausing activation"

She returned her attention to Shinji.

"Ikari," she said. "There is no time for us to practice. You must take control of both the Eva and me."

"Of you?" he asked in a daze.

"Expand your presence," she said calmly. "Assert your mind strongly enough that you completely overwhelm me and take sole control of the Evangelion. We must get this machine moving, and you are the combat pilot, so you will do it."

"I can't do that," he said, with a certainty that surprised even him. "I can't force myself to do it."

"You can, and you will," Rei commanded, a tiny flush tinting her pale cheeks. "You must do it; else the operation will not be able to succeed."

"I'm not that kind of person," he protested. "I'm too weak! I won't be able to assert myself! Why don't you come down here, Miss Aldington? You can do it much better—"

Unexpectedly, a wave of pure, frustrated anger boiled into his brain. He gasped. Rei dove through the LCL, rolled and landed in front of him.

"Do you not have any confidence in your own work?"

"Well, no! I can't trust someone like myself to do…that, so—"

She planted her foot in between the seat and the edge of the Plug, and, with LCL being thin enough to breathe, gave him a resounding slap that sent his head bouncing off of the headrest.

"Miss Aldington…" he gasped.

"You are being selfish," she told him. "Right now, I…Misato, your people, Britannia, and the commander…your father…we are all depending on you to do your duty. Our own preferences do not matter. You _will_ do as you are told."

She must be able to feel his bitterness, he thought. The bitterness of a boy left by the man who expected the boy to sacrifice it all, to do the impossible to satisfy demands which the boy could not refuse, yet had no connection to; did father depend on Shinji? It was ridiculous to think so. He had always been the one thrown aside, after all. He wasn't necessary; nobody needed him, not that he _could_ have done much good.

Rei regarded him with an emotion which she—they—could only interpret as contempt.

"Go to the back, if you are as useless as you say you are," she said. "I will pilot the Eva…alone."

**End Stage XIX**


End file.
